Road Fan

You're welcome, pastorbob! My pleasure to join in the speculation.

I don't have any experience with the Gen 1. If I could see some better pictures and get a better sense of the geometry, I might become interested, but based on my Gen2 experience, my hopes are not high for getting a good functional part. Berto in his 1988 "Upgrading your Bike" does not discuss any Rallys. He does make the point that there is an optimum distance from jockey to cog, between 1 and 2 inches. We can use that to make an assessment of other derailleurs, the Gen1 Rally for example.

Road Fan

Road Fan

I have the Chorus, in use for quite a while on my Trek 610, typical classic Campy durability and stability. In slant parallelogram configuration, it worked well with a Shimano Megarange 14-28 cogset. It's limited by having the jockey wheel concentric with the cage pivot, like a Gran Sport cage compared to a Nuovo Record. In that mode it did not do well with a Sunrace 13-23 (7-speed, nearly a corncob) on the same bike, but it is pretty good in parallel mode.

I'm curious about the Croce, but I've only seen them in rare Ebay pictures.

Road Fan

cudak888 

Odd - all Chorus pulley cages I've seen before have the same pulley cage geometry as C-Record/Super Record second-gen, the only actual difference in the derailer being the parallelogram and parallelogram ends. In fact, I would assume that it probably performs similar to a first-gen Rally with an SR pulley cage.

Never seen a Croce in person myself, so I cannot comment on it with any experience or authority (just speculation ).

P.S.: Have any photos of the Chorus in both parallelogram positions?

-Kurt

Road Fan

I was thinking of taking some, and measuring some dimensions of the pivot arms and cage. But I can't get into this until late next week, big social calendar!

If I want to make this a big project, I can also measure a steel/bronze Gran Sport, a Record, a Nuovo Record, the Chorus, and a C-record. Would be interesting, but I don't know if I'll have time.

Kommisar89

Well I set up the 1st gen Rally on the Bottecchia today. Unfortunately I had to go into work so the whole job was rushed and a bit boched so I'll have to do it over but at least it's functional. It's kind of apples and oranges though - the normal setup until now has been a Nuovo Record with a Shimano 5-speed 14-28 freewheel. The new setup is the 1st gen Rally with a Suntour Perfect 5-speed 14-34 freewheel. On the bike stand it wasn't too smooth - that whole overshift and back off thing was really evident. On the road however, all 5 minutes of it as I rode around in front of the house, it was ok. It's not really fair to compare a Nuovo Record on a 14-28 to anything on a 14-34 as the gaps between the cogs are huge.

A more realistic comparison might be that I could clear a 12,000-ft pass with the Rally and a 14-34 however it shifts while I might be riding the sag wagon with the Nuovo Record and a 14-28. There might not be any hors catagorie climbs here in Colorado but there are certainly some difficult ones and I need all the help I can get for my century rides this Summer. Or Spring. Next weekend. Oh crap.

Road Fan

If you can go to a 126 mm axle on the Bottechia and want a 34 tooth granny, get a 13-34 Shimano Megarange - not vintage but a great tooth design. It will grab the chain a lot quicker than the Sun-tour, giving you more precise and more positive shifts. I know if I was trying to climb up from say Boulder to Nederland on friction shifting, I'd want as much help as possible. You can lose a lot of momentum waiting for a balky friction system to make up it's mind.

cudak888 

Hyperglide (HG), IG, or UG all work quite nicely to compensate for the Campagnolo overshift.

I personally love UG for the fact that it shifts far smoother then a Regina or Suntour, yet, it is not entirely silent as HG or IG, hence, I do not lose the C&V rear drivetrain "feel."

Incidentally, SRAM's late '90s toothed systems are an oddity, if you happen to come across one. They shift somewhat like a condescending Regina - noisy, klunky, but always accurate without much overshift. I have one of these on my '61 Paramount.

Take care,

-Kurt

Kommisar89

Aren't the Megarange freewheels the ones with the huge gap between the largest cog and the next one down? I really don't like those. Ideally I'd like a standard Shimano 7-speed in 13-34 but time is short before the Buena Vista century next week and I had to use what was in the parts box. I rode a short 10 mile ride today just to check it out and the Rally was ok even with the Suntour Perfect 14-34. There was some over-shift required, more noticable in some gears, but nothing really objectionable. More noticeable were the big gaps between the gears and the fact that the geometry of the Rally is slightly different and requires a different pull on the shift lever which had me fishing for the right position a few times. IRD makes some nice 7-speed freewheels in just about any range you want so I may end up with one of those. Too bad they only come in chrome like modern cassettes.

pastorbobnlnh 

So, it sounds as if there is not much difference in the overshiffing challenges between Gen 1 and Gen 2 Rallys. It will be interesting once I have the Super Sport completed with the Gen 1 Rally and then jump between it and the Paramount with the Gen 2. Time will tell.

Kommisar89

It would indeed be interesting to do a back to back comparison PB. I suspect the large spacing between the gears and the tooth profile (or lack thereof) on the Suntour Perfect freewheel I'm using are more to blame for the the minor shifting annoyances then the derailleur. When time permits I'm going to try a few things like a smaller range 14-28 freewheel and a Shimano UG for its tooth profile or even a modern IRD freewheel to see what effect that has on shifting. It's a shame that Berto wrote his "Upgrading Your Bike" in '88 instead of '78 because I'm sure he could have shed a lot of light on the issue but by '88 Shimano and indexed shifting were already making everything else obsolete.

Has anyone read "The Dancing Chain"? Does Frank go into any more detail there? I just pre-ordered the new May 2008 edition from Amazon by the way. It was on sale for $37.

cudak888 

That's right. Shimano's idea of trying to take the granny gear to the rear. They are the funniest things, in my opinion, when coupled with a compact MTB crankset on modern hybrids. Completely useless gearing that will serve no purpose unless you intend to winch yourself straight up a cliff with a rope and your rear wheel.

IRD? Aren't those the Nashbar re-brands? Stay away from them. They perform reasonably decently, but the chrome on my my 12-23 began peeling after little more then 50 miles on it with a new chain and perfect conditions.

-Kurt

cudak888 

The second edition does go into considerable detail about derailer design, pulley plates, etc - even has line-drawings of the G.S. and Record plates. Still too much of his opinion, not thorough (or cohesive) enough an explanation of the derailer systems, and select comparisons and drawings of mostly marginal interest.

Nice diagram showing different FW tooth design though, although the text is wanting in detailed run downs of operational qualities once again - virtually childish compared to BF discussions and his unquestioned jewel Upgrading Your Bike, IMHO.


As for the quality of the first-gen Rally shifting, I dare say the fact that the NR parallelogram and lower body - even with the new, dropped upper body - restricts the distance that the top pulley has to smoothly shove the chain over to the left. Keep in mind that most of the Suntour and Shimano designs have the pivot sitting somewhat farther forward of the parallelogram, and in the case of Suntour - quite frequently - nearly below it.

Forgive the lousy explanation. This is something that really deserves a pictorial with side and front shot comparisons of each RD in each gear on various FW's.

P.S.: Although I grant you the fact that UG, IG, and HG do result in much smoother shifting, keep in mind that it is in no part in thanks to the derailer - even utterly crappy derailers will friction shift over any one of these three with reasonable smoothness.

-Kurt

Kommisar89

Interloc Racing Designs - Harris used to carry them, then dropped them for quality issues, now has them again and says they have been redesigned and that they (Harris) have put them through some road testing and given them their seal of approval. How long ago did you get yours?

cudak888 

Got mine about a year ago - likely the earlier batch.

I've heard about this redesign, but I'd like to know exactly what was redesigned before I put any confidence into it. Case in point, one can just as well road test the old one for a couple of rides and call it OK provided the chrome doesn't flake on them immidiately.

-Kurt

Kommisar89

There are some situations around here were I've damned near had to winch myself straight up a cliff with a rope and my rear wheel but the vast majority of climbs, even ones that are up to 14% or more grade, make gradual changes in grade. I just don't get the point of having that one gimungous cog on the end. Admittedly the spacing on my 5-speed 14-34 is pushing the limits of usability but 2 additional gears would allow you to make a nicely spaced 13-32 7-speed. Ultimately that's what I want but didn't have it in the parts box. Actually, riding around town in the 25-35 mile range there really isn't anything I can't handle with a 14-28 5-speed but 80-miles into a century on Roller Coaster road (yeah, that's its actual name) you really want a bail out gear just in case. At least I do. My friend Brad did that ride a couple of years ago on his fixie but he's an animal. This may all be for naught this weekend. The vaunted climb up to Turquoise Lake has been nixed due to heavy snows which still have the roads blocked and from my lame riding buddies I've heard rumblings of wanting to do a metric century instead of the real thing so I may end up with much more gear than I need. We’ll see on Saturday.

Kommisar89

Too true. Harris has always been a pretty straight shooter so I might give them a call and ask them if they've had any complaints with the new ones before I order one. It would be really nice not to have to rely on NOS stuff on eBay all the time for consumable parts like freewheels or brake pads. Stuff just seems to get harder to find. Last weekend I went to three different LBS to find plain gray derailleur cable housing. The first two gave me that "They don't make much of that anymore and we don't much call for it". I felt like the guy in Monty Python's Cheese Shop..."Not much call for cheddar? Why it's the single most popular cheese in the world!" The last shop had a BA spool of the stuff so go figure.

byrdwyngs

Just to confirm, the NR and SR cages do fit fine and work well on the Rally. I've run them that way off and on for close to 30 years. They do shift a little better than a NR, especially on wider range freewheels, but still not as well as the Suntours of the day. They do look and wear better though. Here's a pic of one of my hybrid Rally/NR/Suntour/AI derailleurs on my Titan.

Road Fan

I kind of like the Megas. The gear spread in the first 6 is 13-24, a great usable road spread with a 52/42 down to a 53/39. The 34 is a bail-out gear, to be sure, but with my lard ass I've needed it even in Michigan.

I don't like it for trainer riding, where I like a smooth variation all the way from 13 thru 30. I have a few Sachs Aris for that setup.

pastorbobnlnh 

Byrdwyngs, that is just a spectacular adaptation. Very nice!

Kurt, I've used only one MegaRange, on my winter snow cycle. Its 34 tooth big and the 28 tooth BioPace granny gave me some real cliff winching climbing ability that was really appreciated during snowy outings.

But it is no longer on the bike. On one of the rides back in December of January, at some point everytime I shifted to the 34 cog, the chain would come off. I thought it was a bad case of icy gunk getting jammed in there. But when I brought the bike in to defrost, pulled the rear wheel off, I found the source of my woes--- somehow I had warped the biggest cog by about 1/4 of an inch out of flat.

I have no idea how I managed to do this. I removed the FW, put on another Shimano 6 speed, and the bike shifts perfectly.

cudak888 

Looks as if it works quite well. Do you perceive any difference in performance with the SR cage? I would assume the SR's main pulley wheel would sit slightly lower then the NR's due to the revised pivot location.

Cheap, soft metal construction. I dare say that when torquing it down whilst downshifting, the chain might have bent the cog along with it down to the next. Good to know.

-Kurt

Road Fan

I've gotten several Sachs Aris freewheels in 13-32 and 13-30 off of Ebay. Good tooth design, a real hard gear material, and smooth spinning. On some frames the 7-speed ones need a mm or two of spacing, but I've only seen this on my Woodrup, not on the Masi, Trek, or Mondonico.

Road Fan

Amazing!

cyclotoine

I must mention, as you did say it in a post after it was clarified on page one of this thread. The RALLY NEVER had a slant parallelogram.

The First generation chorus is superior to all previous derailleurs (including C-record) as it utilized a drop slant parallelogram which could be set at two different angles, one for straight blocs and one for wide range. It was campagnolos best derailleur at the time (IMHO).

Road Fan

Yes, 'toine, I was saying that the Chorus I works well in the straight mode with a 13-23 and in slanted position with a 14-28. It didn't climb up a 32 tooth cog very well. The jockey wheel does not displace as the cage rotates.

Road Fan

cudak888 

DROP-parallelogram then - thanks for the clarification. Been reading too much of Berto's hyrogliphics.

This said though, isn't the difference between the Rally's "drop" parallelogram and the Suntour "slant" parallelogram more a question of terminology amongst the two rather then a distinct design difference? Both designs place the upper pivot above and ahead of the parallelogram - the actual offset perhaps slightly different by a few mm's between the two manufacturers - with the same intent to affect the relative movement of the cage pivot when upshifting. Even Frank Berto mentions that its dimensions nearly mimic the Shimano Titlist.

-Kurt

P.S.: Berto's 2nd Edition of The Dancing Chain shows an incorrect image for the Valentino FD on pg. #208. The catalog image is of the Gran Sport FD.