Long or short cage rear mech?

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I have a long cage M735 to go on my current build but its turned out to be a bit knackered.
It seems the short cage ones are more common, whats the difference??

It's going to be run with Middleburn RS1 cranks and rings.
 
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I think it's the cassette which will define what length of cage is best, not the chain rings. A rear mech will generally have a max tooth count associated with the largest cog on the cassette.
 
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ishaw":1xv3zw8y said:
I think it's the cassette which will define what length of cage is best, not the chain rings. A rear mech will generally have a max tooth count associated with the largest cog on the cassette.
No, it's both.
Cage length is determined by the difference from big to small ring on the front plus the difference big to small cog on the back. (Capacity) The mech model (specifically the parallelogram geometry/angle/position) determines maximum rear sprocket.

What size rings and cassette are you going to use?
 
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The difference is just the amount of chain they can wrap around it. So a long cage lets you use a wider range of gears.
Long cages are actually more common, or should be.
Weenies used the short cage though.

In the real world, both will run on 32 -12 cassettes , with 24-26-46 chainrings. As was common back in the day.
A short cage just gets floppier earlier on granny ring/small rings at the back.

Setup is the same.

If for some reason you like to live dangerously, you can set it up 'wrong' so you can run more granny gear ratios, but risk and will jam it in big/big or snap the chain.
That's up to you.
 
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BITD I preferred to run a short cage, setup so that it ran properly in small/big and big/small combos but would jam in big/big - and just remembered not to shift into it!
 
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Will check what cassette i'm using tomorrow but rings are 24,36,46.
 
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Have things changed with modern mechs then? I have a short cage xo 10 speed that has a max rear sprocket size, and I've done a bit of research which suggests it doesn't end well if you go larger.
 
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No, old rear mechs have a maximum sprocket size too - I think we're just taking it as a given that it won't be exceeded - but the difference between long and short cages isn't usually the max sprocket size, it's the total capacity due to the amount of slack they can take up.
 
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