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What are you using?
Ideally I'd get an Deore XT for £46 from CRC but those days long gone!
Shimano Shadow desirable. 11-36 range is fine. 1x so no need for long cage.
Deore M592 for £47 not too bad really I suppose.
SRAM X5 for £42 better price and increased range should I want it, but bit of a Shimano boy, will it work even with a Deore 9spd shifter?
Or Altus off e-bay for £13!
Anything else I'm missing, any cheap road derailleurs - Halfords have a Shimano RD-R3000 Sora GS for £33 - 36t max.
For comuting the altus would be absolutely fine, I guess you're paying for the clutch
I seriously doubt you'd be able to tell a difference in a blind test with the same shifter
Just concerned the Altus won't be up to the abuse and quickly lose reliability. Any experience with them?
I'm currently stretching a 3400 Sora across an 11-36 cassette on my gravel bike.
It's managing it ok but the 36t is a stretch, I'd suggest an MTB mech, tail end deore or LX 9speed. They actually have longer parallelograms than later generation 9/10 speed road mechs.
eBay has old mechs galore still but you'll want to give them a good going over, be sure you're not buying a bent one and probably budget for a fresh set of jockey wheels.
Beware on the altus as I lot I have seen sub £15 are not genuine. I have seen a lot for that price and it seems that version is widely copied unfortunately. I was after one a while ago but luckily managed to get a different version but yes they can be expensive even second hand nowadays.
SRAM X5 for £42 better price and increased range should I want it, but bit of a Shimano boy, will it work even with a Deore 9spd shifter?
No.
Chain and cassette will be fine but new shifter required for that mech
Just concerned the Altus won’t be up to the abuse and quickly lose reliability.
Genuinely, what abuse? It's only commuting, not the Paris Dakar. It'll be fine (assuming it's a real one). I'd just get an old Deore/SLX/XT MTB one from eBay, they'll just about stretch to 11/36, or see if anyone on here has one in a spares box (I've checked, I thought I might, but I haven't)
Think I bought a 9 speed Ultegra one, from Facebook, for £15 last year. Apart from needing a strip to add some grease it's been faultless running on littleginge's bike ever since.
Edit: this is running on an 11-34 cassette, I think, rather than going up to a 36 tooth but I'd be surprised if it didn't stretch to the extra two teeth.
I've had an Altus on my do everything bike for years (long enough that the middle section only has the letters Al on it and the rest has a nice brown patina of surface rust). Works fine on a 12 to 36 8 speed cassette. I don't have any indexing on the thumbshifter though as it's an old suntour one so can't comment on indexing reliability. My wife's hybrid has Altus 9 speed on trigger shifters and I haven't had to adjust it for about 8 years. Although that bike gets less use it just keeps working fine even after regular spells of months in the garage unloved.
Generally seems to work the same as the 9 speed XT one on one of my other bikes, just heavier.
I have a 9spd sram XO set up in my box of bits that works very well. Make me an offer 👍
A legit Altus should be fine.
Genuinely, what abuse? It’s only commuting, not the Paris Dakar. I
Same sort of abuse as components on an XC bike I guess. I like a bit of fun on the commutes so it just needs to be resistant to a few minor knocks and scrapes.
That Alivo could be the one. Thanks.
The cheapo ebay ones are not genuine, carefully worded adverts - I bought one and I got a an all black derailleur that was obviously poor quality.
I bought lots from this seller before and its all genuine stuff:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32825804795.html
That Alivo could be the one. Thanks.
You're welcome!
Hows about going off-brand and trying a Microshift "Mezzo"?:
https://www.chainreactioncycles.com/microshift-mezzo-rd-m36-8-9-speed-rear-derailleur/rp-prod204944
Looks nice and cheap at about half the price of an alivio(ish), seems to be made mostly from plastic (won't rust at much maybe), says it'll reach a 36t sprocket and work with shimano 8/9speed...
They do an even cheaper one the 'M26' but that only says it'll stretch to a 34t (I bet it can be pushed a bit further) for about £12...
Just found the Alivo M3100 for £25 on Decathlon. Gone with that, and Microshift cassette from CRC.