My old M960 rear mech is coming to the end of its life after 5yrs good service. Anyone tell me what I buy to replace it? I have the old dual control setup from 2005 (ie the old series, not the one that is being replaced by 10 speed now), when I push the lever downwards I shift to a smaller sprocket on the cassette, can change 2 sprockets at a time, one at a time on the way back up.

Is this top normal or rapid rise? Will be used with 34t 9spd cassette…….medium cage or long? Shifters still going strong.

Cheers

I have XT Dual control on one bike, I might be getting confused here, but I think Low Normal (rapid rise) is designed to be used with dual control. If you’re not running a big ring, then Medium cage will work fine. In the XTR range that would be the 970 I think

Have middleburn duo (40/29) at the front so I guess that means long cage? Yeh am not sure if it is rapid rise or not, be an expensive mistake. I’d ask my lbs but not sure they’d know 100%

undo your cable clamp bolt & see which way the mech goes – if it defaults to the little sprocket it’s normal; if it defaults to big sprocket it’s rapid rise

I had exactly the same issue with my old M960 with dual control levers. It finally wore out (lateral twist in parallelogram)after four Years hard use. The M960 is rapid rise, the direct replacement is the M970 SGS long cage, I have a 34-11 cassette, 3 ring setup. I bought from Merlin for £54.95 and works perfectly
Edit:
measure the distance between centres on your old M960 cage-if it is approx 90mm then it is an SGS

Cheers fellas, it does indeed default to big sprocket, sounds like I have the same problem as you jimw, it’s old and twisted and just won’t sit straight anymore.

Have to say I’m pretty happy with the way xtr has lasted. Get what you pay for

You need Xtr 970 (rapid rise) £55 at Merlin, bargaintastic

Cheers….and ordered. Merlin always have what I need….