Jamis Aurora!?!?

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Where is Deore in the Shimano pecking order?

Deore is Shimano's line of "mountain/touring" components.

Way back before mountain bikes were invented, or hybrid bikes even....there were racing bikes, there were casual/errand/delivery/working bikes, and there were touring bikes built for long distance rides over varied terrain and steep hills.

Touring bikes, unlike casual/working or racing bikes, have a wider range of gears to get up big hills. They often have special deraillers and big cassettes in back and triple rings up front.
When mountain bikes were invented, they too needed super low gears to get up steep hills. Manufacturers put touring rear deraillers on them to handle the gear spread. They started calling the touring deraillers "mountain deraillers"....but they are the same parts as the original touring deraillers.
Nowadays, because of the multitude of mountain bikes around as opposed to touring bikes, these parts are usually called mountain parts. Oh, the irony.

My Rivendell is made like a semi-touring bike. It has some really low gears in a wide spread, and to accommodate them it has a rear touring derailler- a Shimano Deore LX (also known as a "mountain derailler" now). It didn't come stock with this extra wide gear range and "mountain" derailler- we asked for it. The other components on my bike are mostly Shimano 105, but the rear derailler is a Shimano Deore LX. If I gave up some low gears I could go back to a 105 rear derailler. No way, love my low gears!

My next bike is going to be similar- basically a road bike with semi-touring geometry and wide range gears. I'm going to move up on it a bit from Shimano 105 to Shimano Ultegra components....but I'll still have a Deore rear derailler to handle the gear spread.

Oh- and Shimano Deore components have their own pecking order- the "LX" is in the middle somewhere I think, but I'm sure someone else has that information better than I.

[sandra]

I wonder how Elk is enjoying her new Jamis. I bet she went back to try and buy it first thing this morning

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Hopefully she'll take another test ride before buying it! It's on hold already, so it won't get sold out from under her.
I wonder what kind of tires they have on it?- she could make them swap a few parts before buying it.
Kind of like buying a car...at the last moment you say- "If you throw some mud flaps and fog lights in at no charge, I'll sit down right this minute and write you a check."

[sandra]

"If you will throw in a Brooks saddle, consider it sold!"