MMACH 5

Yes, you read that correctly. My first road bike had a Rapid Rise derailleur and I got used to what most think of as a backward way of shifting, on the cassette.

I now have a Kona Rove and it has a 9-speed Sora. I'm kind of having to think too much when shifting. It used to be second nature.

Since there is not a Sora RR derailleur, which one would likely be the most compatible 9-speed to install?
Also, switching just he derailleur is all I would have to do, right?

Bill Kapaun

I have Asperger's and I had no trouble adapting.
You ride what you got and it gets natural fast.
Only problem is when you have bikes with both.

'02 nrs

been sold on them as well.maybe a LX mtb? should be a bolt on-just check/adjust chain length.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Shimano-Deore-LX-RD-M580-Rear-Derailleur-Rapid-Rise-GS/264479963961?epid=2249398014&hash=item3d943bfb39:g:nSEAAOSwYsJdjmd7

MMACH 5

I'm a year-around commuter and ride everyday. I've been riding without the Rapid Rise derailluer since 2012. It just never got natural for me. I must be stubborn. : )

le mans

Dosen't this delrailleur spring back to the smallest cog? I have a Deore XT, same thing yeah?

Bill Kapaun

Maybe you have Aspergers?
https://www.wired.com/2001/12/aqtest/

Andrew R Stewart 

Rapid Rise (or rapid demise as we call them) has a rear der that defaults to the largest cog, the low gear. This is the opposite of the vast majority of ders out there.

These units tend to be rather cable friction sensitive and in my (and the many wrenches I've worked with) experience often becomes sluggish in shifting in one way or the other far earlier then the usual High Normal designs. Much like the SunTour front ders of the 1970s (Spirts, V Lux) the market decided they didn't work well enough to continue seeking them out (till now by the OP). Our usual repair of their poor shifting is to install a High Normal unit and tell the customer to not bother with any gear selection indicator. Andy

MMACH 5

Rapid Rise defaults to the largest cog.

MMACH 5

Our son has Aspergers. I have little doubt that I’m somewhere on the spectrum.

Bill Kapaun

I'm 71 and didn't figure it out until 3 years ago. 9-11-2016 was my "trigger moment".
Riding back from a school reunion and my friend had a "talking book" playing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cu...the_Night-Time
He was laughing away at the kids logic while I'm getting more peeved at him for laughing.....
Finally I said.... THAT'S the way I think. Later that night back home I started thinking about it.
I waited a year before I took the test. 44.

leob1

Front freewheel, lefty fork, rapid rise derailers; the dumbest ideas for bike components

WizardOfBoz

Andy, don't they make in-line (with the cable) gear selection indicators?

well biked

Regarding Shimano Rapid Rise derailleurs, there was an XTR RR introduced in the late '90's, and it was a problematic derailleur. A fair number of riders bought in to the concept, but it was a very finicky derailleur, to say the least. Around 2002 (?), Shimano re-introduced Rapid Rise RD's, along with integrated brake lever/shifters for mountain bikes. Together, this was a system that "optimized" the concept of Rapid Rise. Once again, in concept, it was interesting, and if you listened to Shimano, it sort of (?) made sense.

The first problem Shimano faced in bringing RR back to the market in 2002 was convincing everyone that this new generation of RR would work better than the first generation did. I remember reading an article where a Shimano spokesperson explained that the original XTR RR derailleurs were really just designed to stay adjusted for the duration of a single race, they were not designed to be adjustment-free for any length of time. When I saw that, I did feel a since of vindication, because my brother-in-law had one of these RD's on one of his bikes, and I had tried repeatedly to keep it in tune, without any long-term success. It didn't help that the bike it was on was a fairly primitive full suspension bike, and the movement of the rear chassis caused problems with most any RD.....

Anyway, I think the integrated shifter/brake levers on mountain bikes that were designed to be mated to Rapid Rise rear derailleurs as a system lasted about one model year (it was fairly prevalent on a lot of nice new mountain bikes during that short period of time). Once the marketplace rejected this new "system" for mountain bikes, the RR derailleurs died out with the wacky shifters that were designed to work with them.

When used with conventional Shimano shifters, aside from the "opposite" phenomenon, as already mentioned in the thread, they are a bit sensitive, finicky, but if someone really wants the Rapid Rise concept, they do work. Second generation (approx 2002+) much better than the first generation XTR RR from the late '90's, IME.

Retro Grouch 

9-speed is easy. Shimano road and mountain groups have the same cog spacing and cable pull. Any 9-speed Shimano Rapid Rise rear derailleur should be a direct bolt up. No need to worry about chain length because you haven't changed the sprockets.

The worst thing that could possibly happen is you'll hate it for some reason If that's the case, you can always change back.

It's your bike. It's only job is to delight just one person in the entire universe. Do whatever it takes to make sure that happens.

Dan Burkhart 

The explanation I got for the rationale behind the rapid rise came, from of all places, the instructor at STU (Sram Technical University.)when I attended their classes about a dozen years ago. As he explained it, the move to 9 speed wide range cassettes made the angle of derailleur movement slightly miss matched to the steepness of the cassette face. The rapid rise was Shimano's answer to the problem, as now the spring would move the derailleur to the larger cog rather than positive motion, and the potential for binding was reduced or eliminated.
FWIW.

HerrKaLeun

Funny thread. This summer I rode a friend's MTB with rapid rise and wondered what it is for. Took me a while to get used to it and still had occasional shifts to the opposite I wanted.
First I speculated the original owner reversed something to confuse thieves (It was an at the time it was new an expensive bike).

Learning never ends. Mystery solved.

le mans

Yeah?! I've searched youtube videos, hardly any recordings of them. One there seems to default to the smallest cog.
Be interesting to see one in action and how it works

hokiefyd 

I see two YouTube videos with Rapid Rise derailleurs shown. The first is a Deore XT model and the second is a Nexave model. In both cases, cable is pulled to shift to smaller sprockets, and cable is released to shift to larger sprockets. That's the difference between a Rapid Rise (low normal) design and a traditional (high normal) design.

I don't own any Rapid Rise derailleurs, but I think the conceptual mechanical difference is the direction of the primary parallelogram spring. In traditional derailleurs, the spring pulls the parallelogram "out", away from the bike frame, and you pull against that spring with the cable to shift to larger sprockets. In Rapid Rise derailleurs, the spring pulls the parallelogram "in", toward the bike frame, and you pull against that spring with the cable to shift to smaller sprockets. I'm sure there are other smaller design differences, but I think that's the basic concept.

Kimmo 

Paired with cable stop and pinch bolt locations at different corners of the parallelogram.

dsaul

I ran rapid rise XTR derailleurs on my mountain bikes for years and never had any problem with them. I used them with regular shifters that had no gear indicator(if it had one, I took it off). This was back in the olden days, when mountain bikes had front derailleurs, and it just seemed to make sense to have both shifters work the same way. With rapid rise, the thumb shifter always shifted to a higher gear and the finger shifter shifted to a lower gear on both sides. It just seemed more intuitive to have the shifters perform the same function on both sides.

With a low normal derailleur, the left thumb shifter would shift to a higher gear and the right thumb shifter would do the opposite and shift to a lower gear. This was especially hard for new riders to figure out.

LesterOfPuppets

As mentioned earlier, 9sp and earlier road and MTB rear derailleurs are (mostly) interchangable.

I have 8sp XTR RR derailleurs on two of my bikes and like em quite bit. They're hooked up to Sram Attack Gripshifts.

The one I just got was $50-ish on eBay and pretty much like new.

ThermionicScott 

I have a randonneuring friend who likes rapid-rise rear derailleurs because that way, both bar-end shifters go the same direction for higher or lower gears.

woodcraft

You can have mine- I hate that thing.

Bill in VA

I used to have the Suntour FD with High Normal and loved its shifting with the ratcheted DT levers. It was fast and dead reliable (5-6 speed FW). What I did NOT like was it required front RD cable tension to have the chain on the small front chainwheel and small rear cog to avoid cable stretch and/or RD spring set during winter storage. Do I miss high normal? Not at all. I moved that bike to the Shimano 600 Arabesque setup as soon as they come out. Never looked back.

HerrKaLeun

One other negative is that with reversing you can upshift 4-5 gears at a time. But downshift only 1 at a time. On an MTB I'm more in need of multi downshifts at a time. The other disadvantage is the larger shift lever has the easier shift (with help of the RD spring) and the smaller lever the harder shift (against the spring). Makes you realize why the ergonomics for regular are the way they are. No wonder it disappeared.

Maybe in a car one could get used to having brake on the right and accelerator on the left. But randomly building cars with either way would be disastrous.