I've never dealt with derailleurs before as I've avoided them over the years with the Nexus IGH. However, I'm about to build a dream bike. I've read a lot about Shimano's new HG61 12-36T cassette and it sounds sweet. But I've been looking around and I can't seem to find a rear derailleur that goes up to 36T (mostly 34T). Does anyone know of one? If I should stick to a 34T, what is a derailleur I can get most bang for the buck? Same for the front that is compatible with a Sugino X-600 (triple)? Thanks in advance!

you might get more answers in the bike mechenics section or touring section. How low a gear you need
that you need a 36 on the rear?

I have a Sugino XD500T crank with a Deore derailleur which occasionally spins my 34T ring on the cassette. It actually might handle a 36 ring. It handles my 34 pretty well and I use the same RD on all my bikes. Pretty good shifting for the money.

You will need a long cage mtb rear derailleur... would suggest an XT over an XTR as you will save a lot of cash and won't notice any difference in shifting performance.

The performance of any derailleur is affected by the hangar length and don't think any Shimano long cage rear d would have an issue with a few extra teeth.

The 12-36 is designed for 29r's and has it's own hub as a standard Shimano mtb cannot handle the torque load you get when you run those extra teeth... it is pretty much overkill for anything else and even then that cassette is really for extreme off road use.

36 seems like a bit much with a triple front setup.

So some research on derailleur specs: find out what max teeth in the rear are, total rear max tooth spread, max front chainring difference, total tooth difference capacity front and rear.

Something's bound to work. If you can even get close to the posted numbers, it might work out as long as you're never cross chained large/large and the derailleur is rated for your crank spread and a standard 34t largest rear cog.

The new Shimano cassette is being specked on 29r's and could see some serious touring cyclists and tandem riders liking these extra teeth on the cassette and the beefed up hub that goes with it and am sure other premium hubs like Phil Woods could handle the extra stress.

With some off road set ups this cassette would allow you to run a double or in come cases a single chain ring and believe the new 10 speed XT group has a 36 to allow riders to stay in their middle ring longer.

This is nothing new as some 40 years ago Suntour offered touring freewheels with as many as 36 teeth and only they and Huret made a derailleur that had the capacity to handle this kind of spread / range although the top gear was usually a 14.

These were run with half step gearing as the jumps between the rear cogs was huge and it needed that to provide smoother shifting and were popular with early mtb pioneers as they offered the most range possible.

High tooth count Suntour freewheels are fairly rare... the 36 tooth model is the stuff of legends as few people have ever seen one.

I have one that was given to me along with a Huret Duopar Eco touring deraileur which was the only non Suntour derailleur that could handle this kind of range in that day.

Modern long cage mtb derailleurs make this easy and many folks don;t realize that once upon a time your basic cluster stopped at 28 because there were few derailleurs that could handle more than this and changes were made up at the front.

I suppose I will only go with 34T max and go with a Deore rear derailleur. Now, which one? There is the 590, 590s, and 590L. Shimano's site doesn't really tell what the differences are. Also, which front derailleur should I go with?

I have the 12-36 cassette on my 1x9 commuter with a 36 t chain ring, Cranks are Sugino XD and the derailleur is SLX. the set up works great.

The long cage SLX is absurdly long and would probably be just fine.

That was Suntour's Alpine GT line, made for only a very few years. It was a 5 or 6 speed (don't recall exactly which) that included a 14-38 freewheel. I had one for a while paired to a mountain bike crank (SunTour AT) that I had put a Mountain Tamer adapter on. The inner cog (out of 4) was a 17 tooth. Do the math...it was an astounding low gear

But a modern mountain bike derailer could be made to do a 36 tooth cog pretty easily. The ranges given are very conservative. For example I have an XTR rear derailer shifting an 11-34 cassette and a 46/34/20 crank on my touring bike. That exceeds the maximum capacity of the rear derailer by 4 teeth and the front Tiagra shifter by 6 teeth (20 tooth max). It shifts without problems and is as crisp as any other bike I have.

I'm thinking of going with a Sora front derailleur. So what do you all think? Sora front derailleur and Sugino XD 600 triple front, Deore derailleur with 11-32 in the back. Any comments or criticisms? Any input will do, I am building up a Riv so I really can't screw this up...

Really.

Don't know about Shimano,but SRAM is coming out with their XX 10sp MTB setup with a double front and 11-36 rear. The idea is for racers to save weight and complication;the pros never use their small(22-24) front rings. Cannondale specs their high end MTB's with a 44/29 front double for this reason.

Alright update: Sora triple, Sugino XD 600 front, Deore rear, 8 speed cassette up to 34T. Would Dura Ace 8 speed shifters be compatilble with all of this? Someone help?

^^^Yes.

I really hate the Shimano "mega-range" set - it jumps from something like 28 all the way to 34 in one jump. When I had one, if I didn't realize that I was down in 2, when I downshifted the drop in gear ratio just about put me off the bike.

When I replaced the cassette, I made sure that the lowest gear was only down to 28. With a triple, 28 is plenty low even climbing hills, unless you've got crazy hills.