Derailleur gears designed and built in the late 19th century. One example is the Protean two-speed derailleur available on the Whippet safety bicycle. The French bicycle tourist, writer and cycling promoter Paul de Vivie (1853–1930), who wrote under the name "Vélocio", invented a two speed rear derailleur in 1905 which he used on forays into the Alps. Some early designs used rods to move the chain onto various gears. 1928 saw the introduction of the "Super Champion Gear" (or "Osgear") from the company founded by champion cyclist Oscar Egg, as well as the Vittoria Margherita; both employed chainstay mounted 'paddles' and single
Derailleur gears cable-operated parallelogram rear derailleurs. In 1964, Suntour invented the "slant-parallelogram" rear derailleur, which let the jockey pulley maintain a more constant distance from the different sized sprockets, resulting in easier shifting. Once the patents expired, other manufacturers adopted this design, at least for their better models, and the "slant parallelogram" remains the current rear derailleur pattern. Before the 1990s many manufacturers made derailleurs, including Simplex, Huret, Galli, Mavic, Gipiemme, Zeus, Suntour, and Shimano. However, the successful introduction and promotion of indexed shifting by Shimano in 1985 required a compatible system of shift levers, derailleur, sprockets, chainrings, chain, shift cable, and