Originally Posted by
PeteHski
If there was really any worthwhile advantage here, don't you think Shimano/SRAM/Campag would be on to it anyway? The one thing you can say is that not having over-sized pulley wheels certainly isn't going to hold you back in any meaningful way. I love tech, but these are a joke - especially given the price. I would struggle to think of a worse ROI.
Of course it won't, especially for anyone who isn't in the vast minority of folks who would ever benefit from such a thing.
The groupset makers aren't interested in making a straight chainline optimized, not very often shifted, single event use rear derailleur. In other words, they aren't interested in making a time trial rear derailleur optimized for folks who mostly do flat TT's and never shift gears.
The big wheel long cages don't shift as well. So that's a non-starter for them to make that compromise and make tooling and inventory for that. The 1/3 of a single watt or half a watt gained isn't worth the loss of shifting accuracy or speed to most users.
Don't forget, just because the use case being 99.99% irrelevant and meaning a groupset maker won't do it doesn't mean it isn't relevant to the .01% of folks. It's just the marketing push to sell product to folks who don't understand.
We agree here, I just don't agree on some of the rationales being provided. That's all.