Short V's Long Cage Mechs

[Pickle]

I have never had anything to do with short cage mechs, so can someone please enlighten me as to the pro's and cons of them.

I like the look of a short cage mech, and wouldn't mind using one on either of my bikes as and when the current ones wear out; but I'm guessing there will be a reason why they are wearing long cages at the moment.

Any info appreciated guys, as usual

 

[Andy B]

Have a look at this guide: http://uk-mtb.com/viewtopic.php?t=7272&highlight=

 

[cherrybomb]

From what I gather, there is no real advantage over either long or short cage.

Short cage works well for road setups and nice close gear ratios where the effective chain length doesn't change too much across the ratios.
Where you have a difference of around 20T between the big and granny rings and relatively wide ratio blocks on mountain bikes, you're gonna need a long cage to provide enough 'extra' chain to shift across them.

Go duo, and use a road block, and you could use a short cage on one of the GT's

 

[tintin40]

Short cage look cool and weigh less
We had a thread on this year ago. Shimano short cages aren't really short more medium.

 

[hamster]

You can get away with an MTB short cage on a 22/32/42 with an 11-28. Any more would be really pushing it. However an MTB short cage is like a road medium.

On my road bike I juuussst get away with a 30-39-48 and 12-23 (Campagnolo Chorus) bit it's a bit clattery on big-big.

 

[johnkiteman]

I've been running a short cage xtr for years with no shifting problems whatsoever

 

[Kneedowndean]

They do look a lot cooler, and the word at the time was they shifted quicker. My girlfiends Zaskar has had an XT short cage mech for ages and there has been no issues. I'm going to use a short cage on my Hei Hei build. I reckon if you are not prone to little ring/smallest casette or big ring/big cassette issues there is no problem with a short cage.

 

[Crell]

Short cage look cool and weigh less
We had a thread on this year ago. Shimano short cages aren't really short more medium.

That's pretty much it in a nutshell when thinking about XTII that had a proper short cage variant.


I always ran them without problem on a short chain (but then I never went 46/23 to cause it unecesarry strife).

 

[REKIBorter]

I always thought that short cage mechs would not work with a large range of gears, not just across the cassette but also the range available across the front chainrings. Short cage may look cool but I would prefer to have a working bike with a long cage mech any day.