Derailleur gears by 13 drive-train. Most road bicycles have two chainrings, and touring bicycles commonly have three. The rear derailleur serves double duty: moving the chain between rear sprockets and taking up chain slack caused by moving to a smaller sprocket at the rear or a smaller chainring by the front derailleur. In order to accomplish this second task, it is positioned in the path of the bottom, slack portion of chain. Sometimes the rear-derailleurs are re-purposed as chain tensioners for single-speed bicycles that cannot adjust chain tension by a different method. Although variations exist, as noted below, most rear derailleurs have
Derailleur gears is relatively uncommon today. In mountain biking and off-road cycling, the most critical gear changes occur on uphill sections, where riders must cope with obstacles and difficult turns while pedalling under heavy load. This derailleur type provides an advantage over high normal derailleurs because gear changes to lower gears occur in the direction of the loaded spring, making these shifts easier during high load pedalling. The distance between the upper and lower pulleys of a rear derailleur is known as the cage length. Cage length, when combined with the pulley size, determines the capacity of a derailleur to take up