The Golden Boy 

Well, in that case...

BFisher

"Klutz Clanger"
Klutz Cage
Bozo Bar
Biff Brace
Schlep Shield
Goon Guard

Ride with pride!

Kent T

And I'd give Sekine the honor of making the most artistic Dork Disque aka Disque de Dorque!!!

bikemig 

Absolutely. I need to track one down for my Sekine SHS 271. Heck we need a thread on beautiful dork discs, : )

SurferRosa

Maybe you can find some really low level bikes for all those. Try searching "pile of Nomads without derailleurs for sale."

SurferRosa

Not bad. You can get 100 cable-end crimps on ebay for that.

cudak888 

...and a partridge in a pear tree.

Not going to lie, I do see where you're coming from with this. Not necessarily with such vitriol (perhaps I've not worked on enough of them to hate 'em), but when I have, the Duopar has always been a distinct letdown from the hype associated with them.

Full disclosure: I'm biased. Where I live, there's no reason to wrap that much chain. Even a Jubilee is overkill around here

-Kurt

The Golden Boy 

It's not necessarily vitriol- it's a list of legitimate reasons to not use or dislike them. The reason for this thread is that the plastic molded body of the derailleur is unreliable.

Yes, my Eco gave me headaches. Cheap, stamped steel bends. Proprietary pulleys suck. I had a very esteemed member of the forum "fix" it for me, but I don't trust the derailleur.

My Titane did something goofy- (I think the cage spring slipped off the stop). Based on my experience with the Eco- there's a zillion other derailleurs that are more reliable- and look much better- it just makes sense to replace it.

Kent T

Might not be your dish of tea, might be quirky and difficult to live with sometimes. But consider these facts, not every C&V bike has Campagnolo type dropouts, some nice bikes have Huret dropouts (not weird on French C&V bikes), those owners can't easily switch to other alternatives.

Duragrouch

Damn right. First thing I did when I got my first race bike in 1989 was pull it off. But in recent years I've gone back to having one on all my bikes. I've never had the derailleur go into the spokes, but have had the chain jam between the largest cog and the spokes, and that really trashes the spokes. If you use a clear plastic one, just large enough for the duties, it's barely noticeable.

Now what I'd like is a thicker cassette lockring to close the gap between the smallest cog and the frame, on a rare occasion the chain has come off and jammed in that gap, perfect size for a hard jam, any gap larger or smaller would prevent that. I bought a spacer ring for the back of the cassette but when installing it, noticed that, not only would it reduce thread engagement of the lockring, but more importantly, space the smallest 11 tooth cog off the freehub body splines, enough that I believe it would have been problematic, so I didn't use the spacer ring. A lockring with a thicker end flange, or a smallest cog with same, would do the trick.

Duragrouch

Except with Rapid Rise, which my Dahon folder is equipped with. At least set up like Rapid Rise. Tension is toward the big cogs. The Dahon "compact" derailleur shattered on the first pedal stroke on a different Dahon I bought, one of the chain links was frozen due to rust. Replacement would have been like $60-80, and that Dahon had no conventional derailleur hanger, but I replaced it with a $15 derailleur from Shimano with a "claw mount" that goes under the axle nut. Worked fabulously, better than original, and, reversed shifting to "normal", though the grip shift is now labeled backwards. Also required a new chain because it needed to be longer.

Duragrouch

Try finding those PBO spokes at your LBS, assuming the wheel isn't trashed entirely due to the great strength of those spokes. I'll use the dork disc. This particular one is pretty inconspicuous.