Are we talking about that hangie downie shifty thing by the back wheel?

I see no reason to get all exercised about what anyone calls it. We will know what everyone is talking about.l

And you can thank the Normans and their invasion of England back in 1066 well depicted by the tapestry of Bayeux and it is actually more than 50% of french origin in the english vocabulary. French was for over 200 years the official language in the court of England!

I think the consensus of onion is no body really cares and that is how it should be as far as I am concerned.

I was just about to declare my intention to start calling it and spelling it "rerailer" and then I started to repeat to myself "rear rerailer, rear rerailer, rear rerailer" and realized it was a tongue-twister with too many "rrr" sounds. Try saying it out loud three tiimes. Not cool.

I was at the co-op one afternoon and stopped to help a customer with their bike... told them, with all seriousness in my voice, that the rear shifting thingamajig needed some transmogrifiation and he asked if there was anyone who actually knew how to fix their bike around.

The other mechs were laughing their asses off... I am the senior mechanic and by the time folks had stopped laughing I had got the derailleur working the way it was supposed to.

The customer realized that I was just messing with him and got a good laugh out of it too.

Every once in a while we find that someone has a frim fram in their zim zam or that their veeblefetzer needs re-greasing.

This guy could give lessons on that line of speak.

That was rather impressive discombobulation on how the turbo encabulator manages to do what it does so well... getting this down to layman's terms can be quite challenging.

I find myself wondering whether the turbo encabulator is available in carbon?

yeah. or do-hicky down there.

When I am going up a hill and the cable has stretched and I cannot get the lowest gear--I call it something else.

Gotta love winter threads!!

I just ride.

Shifty bits.

My problem is not the pronouncement, de-rail-ee-yer, kinda, but I forget the spelling. So, as an aide-memoire, it consists of three parts:

1) De. Easy to remember that bit. Means "off" in French.

2) Rail. Kind of like a train on the rails, the chain is on the sprockets, like rails. Anyway, easy to remember that bit too. So De (off) Rail (gear, sprocket, sort of) means to move off the sprocket/gear.

3) Leur. Which is what the French do when they look at American lovleys, they might say "Zut allors, zeez ******** fille sont tres jollie, tres chic" and then they "leur" at them. Sort of squint the eyes and peer intently at the victim making "haw haw ho" noises deep in the throat. As it were.

So de-rail-leur.

Bingo.