Hydraulic derailluers
 

is it ever a possibility?

Hmm that would be interesting! Would have to be a very differen't design though!

Hydraulic shifting device. The author is a member of that forum and has a webpage somewhere, but I can't remember it off hand.

Wow thats pretty cool!

Shimano had its "Airlines" system that was fed off a freon (I think) bottle. Trouble was, it was a constant-loss system. Yours is a good thought. Now how could you get the action to have set detents for indexing?

I've thought of that before, but never posted to ask if it ever came out.

Good post!

SAFE hydro lines (the system in NAV's link) were available for derailleur systems back in 1996, but they never caught on.

mavic had an electric derailleur a while ago.. it was just weird.

Shimano has a prototype road group that uses electronic thingies for shifting. There's a big LED on the top of the STI brifter that tells you what gear you're in and how empty your wallet is. :)

i don't know if that would be such a good idea, too many things to go wrong

yeah, but so does anything If its still brand new in terms of design, did the first full-suspensions suck?

The question is do you actually need a replacement from the cable deraillure design? Would it be worth it in improved shifting and realiability?

Sure it’s possible it’s just not practical. Or logical, more reliable or serendipitous.

It sounds cool but if it came down to it, I'd rather have a rohloff hub.

I think the main benefit would be upshifting under pedal pressure. Hydraulics wouldn't require a spring to pull the derailleur up, and thus direct pressure is applied to upshift and nullifying the low-normal or whatever it's called.

All in all it isn't practical =P

not freon, compressed air..

http://www.edgereview.com/ataglance....gory=edge&ID=7
http://www.mtbr.com/reviews/Shifter/product_88480.shtml


at $1600, its not cheap

i would image in the air-lines would freeze/shatter if it were freon.. not to mention it might be extremely expensive to fill up the tank, dangerous too.

I stand corrected. I assumed it was a disposable "air" tank like the little freon "dust-off" air canisters that are used for blowing off electrical components and such (which are actually quite stable). On further reading, it looks like the were refillable, though, with - I assume - just air.

yeah, i wonder how one would refill a tank though.. A shock pump? that might take a while, but it would allow pretty high pressures in that tank. Or maybe just use an aircompressor and a male-male connector...

on a side note, those "dust off" canisters have killed a lot of people that were trying to get high off what they thought was pure oxygen.

What would happen when you rip a derailer off? Seems like there would be a lot more $$$ to repair it.

Hmmmm, that sounds nice and light.

You do have a point, hmmm... but I think the real question is: do we really need a hydraulic derailleur? Would it improve performance at all or is it just a novelty?

Wether or not it works better, Shimano will make one just to force component prices higher and make everything else obsolete. Then the next year SRAM will make one that weighs less, has more leverage, has more carbon fiber and costs even more.

People will be buying new things regardless if its a major improvment. They would market it well. I mean come on, how many of you have ridden with hydo deraillures before, you would be the 'coolest person on the block'. Hmm they could make a bit of money out of this...if it didn't cost so much.

I think moving away from derailleurs all together is the best bet, with internal gear boxes.

+1

When they ditch the derailleurs altogether it will be cool.