Originally Posted by
Andrew R Stewart
Rapid Rise (or rapid demise as we call them) has a rear der that defaults to the largest cog, the low gear. This is the opposite of the vast majority of ders out there.
These units tend to be rather cable friction sensitive and in my (and the many wrenches I've worked with) experience often becomes sluggish in shifting in one way or the other far earlier then the usual High Normal designs. Much like the SunTour front ders of the 1970s (Spirts, V Lux) the market decided they didn't work well enough to continue seeking them out (till now by the OP
). Our usual repair of their poor shifting is to install a High Normal unit and tell the customer to not bother with any gear selection indicator. Andy
I used to have the Suntour FD with High Normal and loved its shifting with the ratcheted DT levers. It was fast and dead reliable (5-6 speed FW). What I did NOT like was it required front RD cable tension to have the chain on the small front chainwheel and small rear cog to avoid cable stretch and/or RD spring set during winter storage. Do I miss high normal? Not at all. I moved that bike to the Shimano 600 Arabesque setup as soon as they come out. Never looked back.