The duo responsible for turning ordinary derailleurs into highly functional, light weight works of art is back. This time with a tuned SRAM Red derailleur, ironically in all black. You may remember the team from our last post where we showed off their incredible 64g Shimano Dura Ace derailleur. While their latest Red creation isn’t as light, it is just as beautifully machined and tuned down to the last gram.
Curious how you remove 53g from an already impressively light rear derailleur? Check out the details after the break!
Starting with the remains of a 2012 SRAM Red 10 speed rear derailleur, Stefan (who goes by FastDad on Light-Bikes) had a 133g starting point as the claimed weight from SRAM. Busting out his skills with the Dremel tool and file, Stefan got to work removing all of the unnecessary material.
Wow.
Like the last derailleur, Stefan had some help from Thomas who goes by Colaweizan. Using his lightweight wizardry, Thomas provided parts like the new 3g main bolt and 5g ti b-spring as well as the carbon b-tension stop.
Thomas also fabricated and installed new and slightly lighter axles for the parallelogram pivots on the derailleur body.
Of course, who could forget Thomas’ incredible Tron-like derailleur pulleys and carbon cage. The difference in design of the SRAM derailleur versus the other Shimano derailleur meant that only one of the pulleys could be hollow in the center.
As the result of their combined effort, the new highly tuned derailleur weighs in at 80.45g. And it’s beautiful.