Reverse action front derailleurs.

[Greg Achtem]

Tim's posting of his Bobet conversion reminded me that I've been wondering about a high(er) quality reverse action front derailleur. 

I'm running a dt shifter for the front, shifting a wide range double. I spend most of my time in the big ring and the shifter standing proud just bothers me for some reason. Are there any derailleurs out there for me? Cyclone or Supurbe Pro level to replace the Superbe Pro I have on there now. I know, I'm a snob. But this bike is built up with pretty high level off the shelf parts. I am brand and age agnostic though.

Cheers!

Greg

[David Pertuz]

Suntour made a reverse-action XC front derailleur in its mountain group. I've been using one for years on my Rawland cSogn. Seems like about SC Pro quality to me. 

David

Chicago

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[Greg Achtem]

Any idea on the model number, David? Would make googling a little easier.

Not sure I'd want to go triple FD. If for no other reason that the dropped back cage would just bug me.

[David Pertuz]

Greg,

I think it's a FD-3500, but I'm not positive. Some googling got me that model number online and mine looks like that but without the black finish on the parallelogram.

David

[Tom]

You might consider an old Suntour SL derailleur. Reverse-action, pretty nice quality, alloy cage. 

-tom

[Tim Potter]

My Suntour SL FD performed flawlessly today on a metric century ride over some pretty diverse terrain.  I'm very happy with it, just takes a while getting used to the reverse action as it's so engrained in my brain.  It's also handling the extreme range of chainrings I'm using very nicely:  52-40-27

Tim

[Brad]

There are a number of Suntour front derailleurs with reverse action.  Pretty much anything before Superbe by my recollection.  The rub is that you have to jigger with the cable path because the revere action is dependent on the cable housing pushing the lever while the cable itself is fixed.  You need an old school downtube cable guide to go with it.  My experience is that the work great.  When I was riding on the big ring almost exclusively with bar end shifters that was my preference. 

Thinking out loud, I wonder if you could reroute the cable so that forward on the lever  was the big chainwheel.  But that is the path that leads to desmodromic modifications and down tube actuated set ups.  http://bicyclespecialties.blogspot.com/2011/11/jo-routens-front-derailleur-project.html

[Steve Palincsar]

On 05/06/2018 02:27 PM, Brad wrote:
> There are a number of Suntour front derailleurs with reverse action. 
> Pretty much anything before Superbe by my recollection.  The rub is
> that you have to jigger with the cable path because the revere action
> is dependent on the cable housing pushing the lever while the cable
> itself is fixed.  You need an old school downtube cable guide to go
> with it.  My experience is that the work great.  When I was riding on
> the big ring almost exclusively with bar end shifters that was my
> preference.
>
> Thinking out loud, I wonder if you could reroute the cable so that
> forward on the lever  was the big chainwheel.  But that is the path
> that leads to desmodromic modifications and down tube actuated set
> ups.
> http://bicyclespecialties.blogspot.com/2011/11/jo-routens-front-derailleur-project.html

In other words, turning it into a standard-operating front derailleur? 
Why would you want to do that, when you could get the same result simply
using one in the first place?
--

Steve Palincsar
Alexandria, Virginia
USA

[satanas]

Suntour made "normal" front derailleurs from at least 1978; we sold them on bikes back then. Occasionally we'd run out and have to buy reverse action ones locally. The latter were more prone to problems IME, but usually worked okay; however, sometimes though they couldn't be made to work, especially with triples. The normal Suntour FDs rarely caused any dramas, even the cheapies. YMMV.

There's a saying attributed to Frank Zappa: "Without deviation, progress is impossible," but IME deviation doesn't necessarily mean progress is guaranteed.

Later,
Stephen (who dislikes reverse action front *and* rear derailleurs)