Bandrada

Personally, I was a fan of Rapid Rise since my '97 Homegrown came stock with it. I pretty much went with SRAM once 10spd hit the scene, but I'm wondering why Shimano discontinued the production of Rapid Rise derailleurs. Is it not more intuitive for most people?

Andrew R Stewart 

Rapid Demise ders went by the wayside for a number of reasons. The reason that matters most was the poor sell through. The buying audience decided that they didn't like the reverse action and voted with their pocket books.

As a mechanic there are a number of reasone i say "see ya!". The biggest is that they are far more sensitive to good friction adjustment of the cable. Andy.

Bandrada

If they had come OEM on more models, I think it may have had a fighting chance. Everything I'm seeing leads me to believe that once 10spd hit the market, for whatever reason, RR went the way of the dodo. The lack of marketing hype (you know we can be convinced of just about anything these days) allowed SRAM to really get their foot in the door.

Yeah, they were a bit harder to setup with tension being a major factor. That said, there were some aftermarket items that made it a non-issue. My XTR came with an additional pulley that helped a lot, and adding tension to the spring was a real easy way to overcome friction.

EDIT: I am also of the opinion that it minimized wear and tear on the drivetrain. Hmmmmm......

cyccommute 

They did come OEM on a number of bikes. But, as Andrew said, they weren't popular. I ditched mine after one use. They were that bad.

Adding spring tension to a derailer isn't something that is all that easy to do. If you can figure out how to remove the spring, you have to find a spring with more tension. You can't just run down to your local 24 hour Spring-R-Us to get a new spring.

The main reason of the demise of RapidFail is because the idea was really dumb. Relying on spring tension to knock the chain from a low torque gear (high gear) to a high torque gear (low gear) is the wrong way to go. I've mountain biked since the 1980s and the front derailer shifting...exactly the same as RapidDemise...has always be problematic. Back in the days before ramps and pins, you either had to shift to the inner chainring at the bottom of a hill or risk not being able to shift to at all. If you could get rpms up enough, you might be able to get the bike to shift but that can be difficult to do while climbing a steep section of trail. Dragging the chain, i.e. forcing it to shift, to lower gears works much better. Suntour introduced a reverse acting front derailer that worked wonderfully to solve the problem. Unfortunately, Shimano didn't pick up that technology. If it had, it would have had a true success on it's hands.

Bill Kapaun

It's one of those FDER's that made my decision which LBS to use.
When i got back into riding, it was on a 73ish Takara 10 speed with that FDER.
I had the chain break, turning the FDER into a pretzel.
First LBS just laughed at me when I asked if they had "one of these".
Second LBS explained how modern ones worked opposite but WOULD work.
Since I was just interested in shifting and not "period correctness" I bought a low end Shimano from them, which is still on the bike, now shifting 3 rings instead of 2.
I haven't been back to the first LBS since even though they are closer.

Bandrada

The lack of popularity might be overlapped by an unwillingness to adapt.

I don't know about you, but I try not to shift into lower gears mid climb. Just asking for trouble, IMO. You are right about spring tension. For some reason, I was under the assumption that some of the older d'ers had a spring adjustment. This coming from a local bike shop owner. Second hand info., so my apologies. Like I said, the addition of the pulley rather than just sliding over the groove was a very good way to overcome the additional friction.

In my mind it would have been much easier for my kiddo to learn how to use gears early on with RR. He had a very difficult time with gears early on, as his little fingers weren't strong enough to "push" the lower gears.

To each their own. For myself, I have really enjoyed having the Hammerschmidt on my DH bike. I can take it a lot of places that other DH'ers would have difficulty with. I've done 30-35 mile XC rides on it and the downhills were an absolute blast! When ramps and pins hit the scene they helped a lot, but were far from saving grace with the exception of really cheap setups. The front d'er was/is problematic due to the fact that standard placement sort of went out the window when we got smart on geometry, yet you are dealing with a mostly standard piece of kit. I never really had a problem with front d'ers once I learned the basic nuances, and in some ways I wish I still had a 2x setup.

Sheldon Brown (RIP) was a fan of RR, if my information is correct.

PS: Shimano is trickier to set up, anyway, due to index ratio.

fietsbob

They,Shimano Corp, can afford to try stuff a while and then make something else , comes with dominating the market .
they set the standards others will be required to follow to be compatible .

maybe they aimed too high and the place it would sell better is at the low cost end.

so, for those not so hip to how derailleurs work, both levers to be less confusing, would move easy to hard, in the same direction.

melloveloyellow

As I recall, the only functionally useful thing on my RR RD was being able to pre-shift to a lower cog (e.g., 18-to-23) while stationary. This helped when I stopped mid-climb (many reasons) and I needed a lower cog to get momentum again. Just shift down 3-4 cogs (all at once - try that with a standard RD), lift the rear wheel, and give the crank a spin. It was quick.

They were too finicky for me, otherwise.

trailangel

Hopefully the Shimano RapidRise derailleur is in a grave with a Shimano Biopace chainset right next to it.

Bandrada

FWIW, I never damaged a hanger with rapid rise, and as long as I set the limit screws properly I didn't have a problem with shifting into the spokes.

D'ers are flat out cumbersome, any way you slice it!

Bandrada

These are two totally different scenarios. What do Biopace chainwheels have to do with shifting mechanisms?

Anyway, maybe you could share some of your experiences with RR and add to the discussion, rather foaming at the mouth.

Kimmo 

Intuitive be damned; it simply makes way more sense to use the cable to pull the chain onto bigger cogs.

The RD spring is more easily resisted than your muscle via the cable.

Actually, you can just add preload to the existing spring. On older torsion types I've stuck a small nut under the end of the spring in the parallelogram arm, much like the adjustable setup on some nicer old Shimano RDs. On the newer type with the tension spring, I've wired a bunch of the coils together, effectively shortening the spring. Fiddly as hell, but recommended on Shimano 9s and above, IMO. Unfortunately on the tension spring it does stuff-all where you need it most, on the small cogs... I prefer the old torsion spring style. Catches less crud too.

Shimano had such a feature on a bunch of their normal RDs; Light Action was where the pinch bolt was on a little articulated arm that was hooked up to the spring in such a way that it was much stiffer than the return spring and thus still much better than Rapid Rise despite putting a spring between your thumb and a bigger cog; it was pretty neat.

Although it makes it hard to bed-in a new cable setup, same as Rapid Rise.

Hopslam

I have 3or4 RR ,90s xtr thru a 08 xtr I rather like them . But then again I like bar end shifters & triples too . And while I'm at it I like parallel push V brakes. Even on my road bikes
; )
Cheers

FBinNY 

Rapid descent.

phoebeisis

I still use a XT LONG cage rapid rise on my Jamis Dragon "ride to and up and down the levee bike"
It works just fine
However-it won't "RISE" to the 41t aftermarket cog I use-I CAN ram the chain onto it with my XT regular rise derailleur

So I just "hand shift" - lift it -up to the 41t cog- it will shift to the lower smaller cog-36T- from the 41t-no problem
I climb up and down the levee (20/41 gearing) FOR 25 MINUTES-so no need to shift again(old with gimpy knees so I need LOTS of gearing)

Yeah seems to work just fine-not sure why they didn't catch on-
Can't say I saw an overwhelming need for rapid rise-but it works just fine-
I wouldn't go out of my way to buy another one,but it works just fine.

davidad

Kinda fixed something that wasn't broken.

Bandrada

I like having choices. That said, all possibilities exist without having made one.

fietsbob

I kind of liked the Sun Tour Front derailleur that was high normal , as when I shifted it to Low, for a climb, it was from Cable force,

not waiting for the return spring to pull it there .. It was an Abandoned design too ..

Eric S.

Does anybody remember a front derailleur version of RR? Some low-end Raleigh bikes had them when I worked at a bike shop in the early '80s. For beginning riders it was easy to "see" that both shift levers forward meant a hard gear, pull them back and you get easier gears.

In the event of having to remove/re-install the derailleur, it was nice that its resting position was over the big ring.

EDIT: I see I missed fietsbob's comment.

HillRider

I agree with both you and cyccommute on this. It makes sense to have the cable force the shifts in the difficult direction. Too bad it never caught on.

Bandrada

Superman would agree, too.

SlowJoeCrow

I think part of the problem with Rapid Rise in MTB applications was that it was closely associated with Shimano's integrated shifters that worked by moving the brake levers, which for anything but the smoothest of XC courses was a pretty bad idea.
Paradoxically, Rapid Rise is popular with retro grouch roadies since Rivendell actually recommended them for a while and some CX riders like to use them with 9 speed Campy shifters.

Kimmo 

I disagree that shifting onto smaller rings is the difficult direction. IMO high-normal rear and low-normal front is unquestionably the right way to have it.

Pull the chain onto bigger cogs; it can drop onto smaller ones more easily IME.

FBinNY 

Kimmo, you and I usually agree on stuff, but this is an exception.

I never liked low normal rears, bt high normal front makes sense for many people, especially newbies.

One of the original ideas was to overcome the confusion among new riders by having both levers move forward to shift to high, and back for low. This seems trivial to us, but I assure that as a retailer in the early years of derailleur bikes in the USA, that levers moving in opposite directions for the same purpose, confused folks.

The second advantage, again mainly for less experienced riders is the issue of late shifting of the front on climbs. Today's gated chainrings solves this somewhat but before those, the chain tension would be too much for the FD spring, and the shift wouldn't happen. The delay made things worse as folks increased pedal pressure hoping not to stall. High normal fronts, allow the rider to force the shift.

Of course, things like gated shifting, and a bit of experience solves the issues, but for the target market of the era when it was introduced, high normal front made a world of sense.

Kimmo 

I agree having one reversed derailer makes more sense for noobs, and is also nice for anyone, as far as the lever direction goes.

And also that it makes more sense for it to be the FD rather than the RD; reversing the direction introduces more potential issues with cable friction, which is minimal on the front and there's a stronger spring to overcome it.

But I'm sticking to my guns about which way presents a tougher job for the derailer. I'm old enough to remember the bad old days of plain chainrings, and it's not like they've all disappeared.

Also, I regularly come across the old Suntour Spirts at the co-op on weekends. They work well enough, and even feel better to use, but IME they don't cut it under load.

Which to be fair, you'd probably never notice if you're not an agressive rider... I'd be interested to see how one would go on modern rings, and I wonder if they'd work with STI...