Madrone Jab derailleur...a warning
I've seen articles about the Madrone Jab derailleur over the past year and they all seemed positive. I've been keeping my eye on them and when one come out in orange, I bought one to try it out. Here's my story/review to give you the info you really need to know before you buy one.
First off, it shifts fine. I have no issue with the shifting of it at all. As a derailleur, it works fine.
Setup: (it's all relevant to this)
The bike is a V1 Ripmo. I've got 175 cranks on it. I ride in velosamba shoes(size 11) because they fit nicely with the ankle brace I need after blowing out my calf/ankle a couple of years ago. I'm on ATAC pedals and the cleats are all the way back in my shoes. I downhill left foot forward and my cleats are setup to keep my feet straight front-back.
Install:
More effort than putting on another XT, but it's different so I was going slow and making sure I did everything right.
First ride:
All seemed well. I got to the first rocky downhill section and I could feel my heel hitting on something. My first thought was that I had somehow rotated my foot and was hitting the chainstay. When I got to a spot where I could peek, I looked and saw that the Jab derailleur is so big that it was hitting my heel. It's a fast rocky descent, so I was highest or next-to-highest gear. Later on, when getting into another descent, the lip of sole of the sole of my shoe actually caught on the bottom of the derailleur. It didn't stay on long, but it stayed on long enough to cause serious mental alarm when dropping into a bunch of rocks.
Verdict:
I'm not going on another ride with the Jab, at least not on the Ripmo. I have a Banshee Titan that's about 1" longer from the bottom bracket to the derailleur mount bolt, so perhaps I'll put it on there since it'll be far enough away. It's not necessarily unsafe, but I've never once had to worry about my heel hitting my derailleur before and I don't want to constantly have to think to force my heel out to make sure I'm not contacting my derailleur. If you have really small feet, really long chainstays, or if you ride right foot forward, then the issue would be mitigated for you.
Image from holding phone on the side of the tire in highest gear..both bikes 29. You can see that not only is the Jab a lot thicker, but it comes a lot farther forward as well.
