Originally Posted by
SwimmerMike
@
merziac I bought the SOMA long cage adapter and installed it on my NR. It's working really well. I picked it up at my LBS and the Vintage Mechanic (Doesn't every LBS have a mechanic that specializing in vintage bikes?) also agreed that this was the best solution if I wanted to stay Campy. Thanks for your feedback it saved me a few weeks and probably a lot of frustration.
Mike
No worries, you're welcome.
The Merz has a Rally that is original and as I said works great, is original and was the best solution of the time despite its reputation for snapping off and failing in other ways. Jim would not have used them if he didn't think they worked well enough.
I firmly believe they are good IF they are setup correctly, I do believe it is probably a narrow window with chainline, chain lenth, stop settings, gear ranges and all else.
I took that one to Eroica in 2017 and on one fairly long gravel down hill was bouncing around shifting through the gears till I was flat out in high gear.
The whole program was amazing, the faster I went, the better it rode and shifted, felt like it could go on like that for miles.
Again, Jim was/is a master of this, he worked with Spence Wolf who made his own long cages for his alpine gearing on many custom frames Jim built for his customers.
I can also admit to jamming it up a bit a few times but if you stop when it doesn't feel right I think you can avoid most all of the problems these are known for, operator error is often lost in translation when the POS supposedly blew up "all by itself".
