Rear Mech Cage Length?

[TechMech]

I'm building a mountain bike atm and still need to source a rear mech for it, however, i'm confused by the cage lengths (short, medium, long).

The bike will have 22/32/44 up front with an 11/32 (9 speed) at the rear.

I know that i'll probably need a medium or long, but is there really much difference?

 

[mercurykev]

For that set up you'll have to use a long cage - tends to be the case for triples as the long cage needs to take up the slack when you're on the granny ring.

 

[mickle]

wot mercurykev sed

 

[Steve Austin]

I've riden MTB's for more years than i can remember and i have never used a long cage mech for those gear ranges. As long as you are sensible with your shifting and don't run small/small or big/big then you can run a medium cage mech very happily. The advantage is they don't dangle as much as the long cages mechs and they are less likely to catch on trail rubble.
The newer Shimano shadow range are even better as they are lower profile so don't stick out in the middle of nowhere. Don't believe the hype about long cage mechs, they are completely unnecessary.

 

[mickle]

Agreed, if you're very very careful with setting up your chain length, never ever even accidentally use the extremes of big/big small/small (and don't have rear suspension which grows your chain) you can use a medium cage rear mech.

When MTB rear suspension was in it's infancy it wasn't uncommon for people to do all kinds of nasty damage to the back end of their bike because the rear mech didn't have the capacity to cope with gear range and chain growth over big bumps. designs have changed so it's not an issue these days but at one point Sh**no was having so much trouble with this that they virtually stopped making medium and short cage mechs, you just couldn't get them.