My 1980s Schwinn Paramountain had a 13-30 six speed freewheel. It's a really nice Shimano 600 freewheel, but the 13 and the 15 were toast. It was like the original owner only used the 13 and the 15. You know the type. So, I set the limit screw on my Shimano Deer Head rear derailer to make my bike a 3x4.
Then David Banzer was selling some nice freewheels, and I picked up a 13-34 Suntour Winner Pro 5sp freewheel from him. Put on the freewheel and the Deerhead wouldn't take the 34. Not even close. So, I put on an Altus from Riv. Not only did the Altus take the 34 like a champ, but it shifts WAY better than the Deerhead ever did. The Deerhead derailer is definitely old, but it's not loose, floppy, bent. I attribute the difference to the unambiguous design flaw that the Deerhead does not have a slant parallelogram, but the Altus does. The Deerhead has a drop parallelogram. Anyway, besides the fact that the Altus is humorously heavy, and besides the fact that the pulley bushings come bone dry (I lubed them), it is a really great and really cheap rear derailer. Anybody running friction shifting should give it a chance. I have no comment on running it indexed. There is something to be said about letting Shimano take a design to absolute full maturity and then let it trickle down to the very cheapest model. The Altus is that. Bill Lindsay El Cerrito, CA P.S. Let me know if you are nostalgic and want my deerhead rear der. I'm keeping the deerhead front, for a couple reasons. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
