I'm building up my dream touring bike based upon a Waterford T-22 frame. At 61 years young, if not now when? At least that my story for my wife and I'm sticking with it.

In order to offset part of the cost of the frame I'll be transfering over the wheels and many of the components from my current bike adding and upgrading where necessary. My current front derailure is a braze-on 105 however I might as well buy a new front derailure instead of a seat tube clamp. I'll be running 9-speed with D/A bar ends, XT rear derailure and a 24/36/50 Sugino crankset.

While not necessary up front, I've noticed that older NOS XTR front derailures are fairly inexpensive on ebay. I just don't know which model XTR bottom pull front derailure to buy. Do I need top or bottom swing and what's swing anyway? I've seen a number of older 952, 960, 970 and 971 models, which would work best?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Sam in Cincy

the front der. is probably the least important part on the bike to invest a lot of coin into... I would get whatever looks nicest to you.

for me it would be something silver that i could de-brand and polish up.

It looks to me like you will be routing the shift cables under the bottom bracket - if that is the case the vast majority of the Shimano XTR front changers are top pull for mountain bike use where the shift cables run along the top tube. The top pull design has the cable basically coming from the top tube. If the cables will go along the down tube you will want a bottom pull front derailleur like the braze on Shimano 105 you currently have. I'm not sure if it will handle triple chain rings though. The bar end shifters will allow you many more options as well. Your Waterford uses oversize tubing from what I read, so whatever the diameter of the seat tube you could get a braze on clamp from Problem Solvers to mount your 105 changer, if it can handle the triple crank set. The clamp is around 15.00.Using it you could mount any appropriate braze on front derailleur or buy the correct diameter version with an integrated clamp on band. The more knowledgeable here will hopefully chime in on your choices. Forgot to mention that bottom swing is where the cage link is below the clamp and top swing is above the clamp.

Most modern MTB FDs are dual pull while the road FDs are bottom pull.

Tiagra

It's most important that you find something that will work with your chain ring spread (24-50). I'm guessing that an XTR won't work well with anything bigger than a 44 or 46. I could be wrong. Check out a Shimano RX100 if you can find it. It's what they used to (maybe still do?) put on a lot of touring bikes.

I've got a pretty similar crank on my bike - Sugino 48-36-24. I have a plain old Sora triple FD. It works OK. You've got to be pretty careful adjusting the limit screws. If the limits aren't exactly right, the FD will throw the chain when shifting to the smallest ring.

I've noticed that, while I can shift from the small ring to the big ring quite smoothly, it's a bit tougher to shift to the middle ring. I don't know if that would be easier with another FD.

I run 80's Campag Euclid MTB derailleurs on my Touring bike a 50,38,24 triple.

On my 52/42/24 crankset, I use a vintage Suntour that I believe was intended to be used on a double. I am not sure but I am guessing that the derailleur was built in the 1980s. The sides on the cage are flat, no weird bends in the cage to help lift the chain.



The 24t to 42t shift is not very smooth but it almost never takes more than 50 feet of distance to complete that shift and usually only takes half of that distance. The 24t is an aftermarket chainring so it is not matched to the pins and ramps on the 42t chainring which likely does not help shifting performance.

Yes. It's a superior touring front derailer for a couple of reasons. First, the distance between the inner and outer plate is wider than more expensive derailers. This means you can use more gears in the rear without chain rub. Secondly, the outer plate on all derailers have dentations pressed into them to make the outer plate stiffer. Expensive derailers have larger dentations pressed into them. This just narrows the distance between the plates further and makes set up without rubbing more difficult.

The XT front suffers from the same problem, although it's not as bad as the XTR front. I have an XTR on a mountain bike and it's the worst derailer I've ever had. It's nearly impossible to keep it from rubbing the chain.

+2 Tiagra-- They are dependable,flexible, shift well, will not break the bank, and the reasons Cyccommute listed.