Setting up front derailleurs is really friggin' annoying. It's not complicated, and it isn't difficult. What it is is irritating.

And one of the most, indeed, to my mind, the most annoying part about it is setting the mounting height of the damned things. It sucks. And the reason that it sucks is that you have to set the clearance between the derailleur's cage and the top of the big ring's teeth. Which sucks. And the reason that that sucks is that you have to simultaneously hold the derailleur at full extension with one hand while sliding it up / down the seat tube and setting the angle with the other. Which, unless you're using a Spirt*, means you're fighting the spring. With your fingers. Which really sucks.

And so, as I was trying to unbork the front shifting on the PPPKN-10, (of which more elsewhere,) and complaining about the lameness, when, inspired by the movement of the derailleur when I loosened the cable pinch bolt, and by a post about a centerpull adjustment hack that used the old cable upside down, which I can sadly not find, the Gnomes handed this up from the Cave of Bad Ideas:

What if I took the cable pinch bolt and threaded it into the arm from the other side, so that tighten it would move the derailleur outward?

So I tried it.
And it works.
And it's pretty awesome.
(And an Ultegra 9-speed triple front derailleur doesn't like a 26t granny, at least not with a 48t big ring. Back to the Nuovo Gran Sport, which was working fine before the Saga of the Bottom Brackets.)

Anywho, that's today's Bad Idea. Which is now open to criticism, and even outright mockery.

--Shannon

*It just occurred to me that this may have been the question to which Suntour's top-normal front derailleurs were supposed to be the answer. Yet another reason that I should build a fully reverse-buttocked drivetrain someday. RapidRise and Spirt... two dumb names for one dumb idea!