Ok, bought a Giant Reign3 off the classifieds a few weeks ago and due to logistics only got hold if it last week. Took it out for a spin just now and everything looks good… except… the rear derailleur operates in reverse, i.e. Push selects a smaller cog, pull selects a larger cog. All runs really smooth, just backwards. I'm sure (hoping) it's a simple procedure to correct it? Do a lot of people ride with this setup? Have I been in the dark all these years about some elite shifting technique?

Please enlighten me!

it's called rapid rise and is supposed to be like that

lol

If you cant get used to it change the rear mech my advice would be get used to it makes shifting when you are climbing much smoother

I'm sure (hoping) it's a simple procedure to correct it?

The correction procedure is called "buying a new mech".
Rapid Rise is the spawn of Satan, a solution looking for a problem that didn't exist.

IMHO obviously…

Thanks guys. The bike is actually for a mate who's going to get in to riding. But he hasn't seen it yet as he's on holiday. Guess I'll tell him to get used to it like that. It'll be his only bike so shouldn't be a problem.

Just never seen it before. Learning something new every day!

Crazy-legs, if it's the spawn of Satan, he might not want to get used to it then! But that's his calling suppose! Just hope riding with him and him demonic gears won't drag us all to hell!

Suntour Road front road levers were backwards in the 80s

And, now I think on't, I will keep thee backwards;
Thy lodging shall be backwards; thy walks backwards;
Thy prospect, all be backwards; and no pleasure,
That thou shalt know but backwards

Volpone Act 2, Scene 2.3

isn't rapid ride somewhat defunct now? if you kept it on and he got into it, what would happen when he came to need a new mech? i'd prbably change it, fwiw.

Tried an Orange demo bike today with a 'normal' rear mech. Absolutely horrible, was wishing for a RR all day!

Rapid rise is awesome! Perfect upshifts under full power no problem. All right minded people should embrace this technology. Traditional is stupid, you have to ease off the power or concentrate on gradually pushing the lever get a clean shift, which aint easy when your honking up a bloody great hill.

Unfortunatley seeing as RR isn't available on shadow mechs it looks like they might be dropping it 🙁

The problem with RR as far as I could ever tell is that when the set up is working less than perfectly because of weather etc, you can't use that little bit of extra lever push to get the chain to move into a lower gear.

Shimano and their lolwacky shifting, brake and axle "standards" of the mid 2000s.

Thanks to that, we now have a SRAM corp that's got a lot bigger and now keeps Shimano on their toes.

No bad thing…

It's rapid rise and should be how all rear mechs work (to balance out what crazy-legs says) – I love it and don't like the other style (old-style solution?) any more…just don't get on with it…Rapid rise all the way.

rapid Rise and dual control levers is the way to go.
Easy changes to an easier gear under load mean uphills are easier (till you run out of gears)

geetee1972 mucky cables causes the same problem whether you got RR or standard, you just gotta nudge it into a harder gear rather than easier.

PJM, Sram aint done much to influence shimano imo. The direct cable routing to rear mech was done by sachs before sram bought them, finally taken up by big S with shadow mechs. Push push thumb shifters sram did were a rip off of older shimano shifters, now reintroduced by shimano (yay). Having difficulty coming up with a sram original idea that bigS have copied (but open to ideas)

rapid rise is for road bikes, but I seem to be the only convert to this righteous path

I had a RR XT and swapped it out for a regular SLX mech. confused me too much!

@Donk

SRAM have been nibbling at Shimano's market share and making significant inroads. That alone can only be a good thing for incentivising Shimano to make better kit.

Regardless of who ripped off whom.

True you may have a point PJM but…I'm pretty sure most people in the MTB industry are in it cos they are mountain bikers, they want to be in it and they want to make mtbing better. Didn't think they were short of incentive to make better stuff.

I'll not discount that I could be being hopelessly naive of course.

Scaredy pants soon as they make a road RR i'll buy one.