“You know how the title came about - Disraeli Gears - yeah? We had this Austin Westminster, and Mick Turner was one of the roadies who’d been with me a long time, and he was driving along and Eric (Clapton) was talking about getting a racing bicycle. Mick, driving, went ‘Oh yeah - Disraeli gears!’ meaning derailleur gears... We all just fell over... We said that’s got to be the album title.” Ginger Baker remembering 1967.

This site is all about rear derailleur gears... it is a little about remembering... and a miniscule part of it is even about the very derailleur gears that Eric Clapton may have been dreaming about back in the Summer of Love.

It is a portrait of a real collection of real derailleurs in all their rusty glory. The site is now about half complete, which, of course, means it is also half incomplete. Despite this, I hope that you find something here to enjoy.

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Before you get into the derailleur collection you may like to read the introduction. Whether or not you do this, you can browse the derailleur collection in five different ways:

• By derailleurs. This is a huge unwieldy list sorted by brand - but it gives you the big picture.
• By brands. Look at each brand in turn - and get a wee spiel about the brand for good measure.
• By countries. Check out the countries you never expected to see on a derailleur site.
• By decades. Going all the way back to the nineteenth century.
• By themes. I have grouped derailleurs in ways that interest me, and may hopefully interest you. People seem to particularly like the coloured selection.

In addition to the derailleur collection the site has three further sections:

• A collection of documents relating to derailleurs, such as catalogues, instruction leaflets and patents. Some of these are surprisingly beautiful and/or interesting. Others, well they are derailleur catalogues.
• A collection of spurious trivia loosely related to derailleurs. If, for example, you are hungry to explore the derailleur’s place in contemporary music, film, literature or fashion then this is the section for you.
• A list of links that I have found entertaining and often useful.

As a handy guide, each of these sections of the site has its own colour scheme, and its own drop-down menu - very modern.

You can use the arrows like this to move to the page that I deem to be logically next (or previous).

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Finally no website is complete without a 'social media strategy' - and this one is no exception. You can find a link to my Facebook group in the footer of each page. This is what Facebook calls a 'closed' group - to avoid the evil that is spam-bots you have to ask to join it - but I am unlikely to refuse membership to anyone human. This group is growing, and is becoming a useful forum for discussing all things derailleur.

I hope you will find some of this stuff useful.

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Thanks for visiting.