DISRAELI GEARS
Today, we are all aware that the current Shimano Dura-Ace derailleur probably holds the meaning-lite title of 'best derailleur in the world'. Of course every pub in the land will house a self-appointed expert who holds a provocative (and interesting) opinion that they prefer some other, not quite so obvious, model from some other, not quite so obvious, brand - but that is what pub arguments are for.
In 1983, however, things were not quite so straight forward. The 1977 Shimano Dura-Ace (7100) was pleasant, but slightly underwhelming. The 1978 Shimano Dura-Ace EX (7200) was more technically interesting, but by 1983 was kind-of average and very long in the tooth. The 1980 Shimano Dura-Ace AX (7300) was so overly 'interesting' that most consumers of top-end equipment gave it a body-swerve. The Dura-Ace name was struggling and 'best in the world' seemed some distance away.
And then the Shimano Dura-Ace SIS (7400) groupset hit the scene. It had four stand-out attributes, one obvious, and the other three more obscure, but, perhaps, equally important:
But also:
Starting in 1984, Shimano rapidly came to dominate the world of high-end components. SIS was, of course the fundamental driver of this - but I suspect that SIS alone wouldn't have worked. If the Sachs-Huret Rival (41.1D) had had reliable indexing it would not have had nearly the same impact - because it was slightly crudely manufactured and, whisper it quietly, plain ugly.
The final oddity was that, in my experience, Shimano Dura-Ace (7400) hardly sold at all. Road bike sales were pretty low in 1984 - and things only got worse and worse over the next decade as the revolutionary new mountain bikes came to completely dominate the market. I found that selling bikes equipped with the eye-wateringly expensive Shimano Dura-Ace SIS (7400) was virtually impossible in the UK. For that market, at that time, they were a totally wrong sort of bike at a totally wrong sort of price point. But as so often in the early history of Shimano Dura-Ace, that misses the point. In the UK, at least, Dura-Ace (7100) and Dura-Ace EX (7200) only sold OK, but established Shimano as a company that was ambitious enough to get involved with the pro-peleton. Dura-Ace AX (7300) sold pretty poorly, but established Shimano as a technology leader. And Dura-Ace SIS (7400), however well or badly it sold, established Shimano as 'the best in the world'.
I suspect that Shimano was more than delighted to rake in the shed-load of mid-range sales that its new reputation generated.
I suspect that Shimano was more than delighted to rake in the shed-load of mid-range sales that its new reputation generated.
I am aware of 5 different variants of the 7400 series rear deraillleurs. I think that their distinguishing features might be as follows:
This is a well used, but still respectable, example of the second version described above. Some key features are:
Browse associated documents.
Shimano Bicycle System Components (08/1986) scan 3 of 24
Shimano Bicycle System Components (08/1986) scan 3 of 24
Shimano - Technology Continues the Tradition
Shimano - Technology Continues the Tradition