If the Crane was symbolic of Shimano’s determination to mix it with the best, the Titlist was the gear that was actually designed to do the business. The Titlist shared the same parallelogram but had steel cage plates. Mysteriously, this small change meant the price was much, much lower.

The first style of Titlist had a cast outer cable stop, just like the first style of Crane (they both use the same casting).

This particular example shows a type of mutation that you occasionally see in the zoosphere of derailleurs. Like a postage stamp on which the Blackbird is missing its legs, this derailleur has the outer parallelogram plate of a Tilist GS, but the pulley cages plates of a plain Titlist. Had Yoshi been at the saké during his lunch break? Had Shimano run out of parallelogram plates for plain Titlists? Who can say?

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1. •Brand: Shimano
   

2. •My category: Shimano - the Ultegra story, Shimano - the Deore XT story
   

3. •Country: Japan
   

4. •Date of introduction: 1971
   

5. •Date of this example: 1976 (two letter date code AC, stamped on the pulley cage plate)
   

6. •Model no: a mix of D-601 and D-611 (DB-200 and DB-210)
   

7. •Weight: 248g
   

8. •Maximum cog: 28 teeth (Sutherland’s 4th edition)
   

9. •Total capacity: 28 teeth (Sutherland’s 4th edition)
   

10. •Pulley centre to centre: 45mm
    

11. •Index compatibility: friction
    

12. •Chain width: 3/32”
    

13. •Logic: top normal
    

14. •Pivots: two sprung pivots
    

15. •Material: aluminium parallelogram, steel pulley cage plates
    

0001/A