Can you please explain the difference?

Shadow on the right – it’s more ‘out of the way’ but IMO they’re less robust since the fixing point is pretty flimsy. The cable routing on the shadow is better though.

Shadow:

Non-shadow:

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Shadow mechs are weak with an extra pivot to go sloppy but do have better cable routing. the lower profile is fairly irrelivent IMO if you catch a mechs parallelogram on stuff it’s not because it sticks out too much it’s because you didn’t get your line right.

If I wanted a decent (light, strong & cheap) rear derailleur, I’d prob still go with an old skool road mech.

Thank you all for your great answers and pics 🙂

regular XT rear mech ordered

what does the sram x9 profile look like in comparison.

eee you learn something new every day

I thought shadow meant it only had the barrel adjusters on the shifters, not the derailleur

😳

Personally I prefer the shadow to the regular version (have one of each). The cage spring on the shadow is stronger so stops the chain slapping about as much.

Dunno, but in a week’s riding on properly rocky trails in Spain (switchbacks.com, go there, you wont regret it) just about everyone bent their rotors, but no bent mechs (3x SRAM, 1 shadow, 2 normal) ???????

IMO its a waste of money as the cage is still in the same place and they don’t do a rapid rise version.

Recently changed from old skool XT to shadow, and have to agree with bigyinn, the stronger spring is very noticable, much less flappy chain.

I switched from a regular XT to a shadow XT and haven’t noticed it being weaker, saying that I’m pretty careful with my lines (HT doesn’t forgive).

I prefer rapid/reverse rise too