Originally Posted by
bikemig
The RD is a short cage Deore XT which can handle that triple but yeah that's pushing the envelope a bit. The short cage RDs were kind of a thing BITD because people thought they were less likely to get hung up on a stick or something riding offroad.
As I recall, Grant Peterson wrote a bit in the early Bridgestone catalogs that basically said if you’re a good enough rider to buy this bike you’ll know how to use a short cage derailleur with a triple crank.