Originally Posted by Walter
All that and the fact that racers wanted the minimum amount of cable between shifter and mech made the D/T the only "serious" choice at least if you wanted to be taken "seriously" by the "serious" crowd.
And even that much is, I think, codswallop; it sounds like something some armchair engineer concocted after the fact so he wouldn't have to utter the phrase, "I don't know.", and subsequently the ad lib became a cycling myth. If racers had been that concerned about absolutely positive derailleur control they'd have been using solid wire or rods and levers, not braided cable.