Whirr Clatter Clatter CLATTER Oh Feck

Greg T

Right then

I hope beyond hope that I'm not the only one here - I'm looking for some validation that I'm not a complete technical biff and lone sufferer.

It does not matter how many cups of tea I drink, time I take or times I read "simply adjust the cable tension using the barrel adjuster until the rear mechanism runs smoothly up and down the cassette" articles...

Mine don't

They mostly kinda do unless I REALLY need a clean up change to look cool when after a single click - nothing - the another click and I go up two and drop like stone to a fanfare of crunching chain on cassette gunfire.....

DO NOT post here how to balance up my gearing by adjust the barrel or anything else helpful. Just say how yours aren't silky smooth and snag free and how much pain this gives you.

If yours are fine then just shut up and be smug.

synchronicity

I have 20 rental bikes, and they all fall into the same category: "Up and Down in perfect mechanical harmony".

:arrow: I won't mention cable tension...

Have you lubed your cables?
Cleaned between the rear cogs?
Lubed the chain?
Lubed the derailleur parallalogram & pivot points?
Lubed the pulley wheels?
Checked your cable routing?

Greg T

Greg T wrote:

DO NOT post here how to balance up my gearing by adjust the barrel or anything else helpful. Just say how yours aren't silky smooth and snag free and how much pain this gives you.

AAAAAARRRGGGGHHHHH

It's Derailliers I have a problem with not google!

Appreciate your help and all Synchro but this isn't looking for help this is just looking for company (with fat fingers and short attention spans)

tomfoolery

Ok this is going the wrong direction from post 2 (sorry Greg), but I understood that modern cables didn't need lubing. I thought they had a low-friction inner, er, thing.

I threaded my rear derailleur cable myself, and didn't lube it. Is it possible to do it in-place, or do you have to take it out?

For the record:after a good while on the workstand I can achieve 'Bit dodgy both ways'.

synchronicity

I bet you all lube your chains with WD40, right? :P

Greg T

synchronicity wrote:

I bet you all lube your chains with WD40, right? :P

You see this is where it starts......

I used to use WD40 until I worked out that my speed was being badly compromised by the 2KG of mud I was dragging around with me stciking to my chain - now I use Teflon Dry lube - or water if it's raining...

tomfoolery wrote:

For the record:after a good while on the workstand I can achieve 'Bit dodgy both ways'.

TF for rescuing me from lone biffdom I'll allow this to become a Smug Git drop in session where wisdom may be dispensed..

IF the smug git admits that it's Black magic and tricky to get right........

Synchro my kit is gleaming and lubed, new cables and outers - all routing fine.......

It is literally balancing the adjustment barrel.....

Just when I think I've nailed it I drop it down the cassette and it doesn't like 8th....

Ultegra all round - apart from the pilot

Argh.

cee

smug git here......

although I must confess that after doing all the do, and then to the point in question....barrel adjuster....i adjust it...then more....the more....more..you get the picture....until suddenly.....angels flying up and down the cassette.

Greg T

OK then I deduce that 1 in 4 commuters have trouble balancing their gears and 3 in four lie....

woodford2barbican

I am smug because I pay someone to do it!

secretsam

woodford2barbican wrote:

I am smug because I pay someone to do it!

x2 - am mechanically OK but when it comes to this dark art...

cee

Greg T wrote:

OK then I deduce that 1 in 4 commuters have trouble balancing their gears and 3 in four lie....

nope......mine work fine. As i thought i indicated, i don't know exactly what happens, but just suddenly after some fiddling, it works great.

el_presidente

What mech?

jjojjas

4 bikes at the mo' all of them change fine. It took me a while to work out how to do them, but I got there in the end.

Clever Pun

Greg T wrote:

OK then I deduce that 1 in 4 commuters have trouble balancing their gears and 3 in four lie....

I feel your pain, I've all but admitted defeat and take it to a local shop and get them to do it for me for £5... hassle free gears 8)

I would like to know how to do it myself but I get scared and confused

What I think you need is someone to show you how.. reading about it is all well and good but someone imparting the knowledge with you there asking the questions would sort it... That's how I'd learn it I think

2wheelzgood

The President wrote:

What mech?

Nah Greg. I never got used to it. My MTB is a mess and I can't get up hills. It IS the gears' fault not my belly!

My rear broke on the commuter one day and I had to ride on the biggest gear.. been doing it ever since! Oh yeah

Forget fiddling screws, thinking you've done it only to find it now misses a gear or you've "righty-tighty"-ed it wrong way!
Forget lubing cables
Forget having to click 2 gears up and quickly back down one before it does catch the second... I never understood why it didn't change on one click but on the next click, it'd do both of those gears dead quick..

1 ring, 1 cog. You know it's right 8)

Greg T

2wheelzgood wrote:

1 ring, 1 cog. You know it's right 8)

The dark side is indeed powerful and tempting but I have lungs like chicken fillets and a low pain threshold........

I should have stipulated that Smug Gitness only kicks in if you try and balance it yourself.... I wonder how many smug git's kit works 'cos a bike shop guy does it for them?

I'm going to have to spend most of this weekend drinking tea and arseing around with my "rear mech".

Great - thanks a bunch for making me feel bad guys.

To the bloke who answered "DANGER Shrapnel" - I love you.

SmellTheGlove

To all you smug barrel artists out there - you might have the knack to tweak 'em but you also know exactly how long until it all goes pear shaped

Only a couple more votes for "shrapnel" and the poll result becomes a cassette in itself...

ris

i thought i had it sussed, but this afternoon my derallier is mucking about like nobodies business. first it wouldn't run without chattering or jumping every so often, now it won't go into one of the lower gears.

i can see an evening fiddling with the barrel thing until i give up and lube myself liberally with scotch. if successful i may try malt on the mech as well.

synchronicity

The thing with the unmentioned thing that you're supposed to turn, is that to get it to perfection, you're looking at 1/4 or at most 1/2" turns. Start with the cable itself completely slack in the smallest cog-

Greg T

So on my larger chain ring I have no problem bouncing down to the 7th cog, click whir. click whir. click whir.

From 7 to 8 we have our first refusal - another click on the shifter will do the job - but that's not cool. So an adjustment of the barrel and - click whir - 8th.

Brilliant, 9th, 10th - on the ball.

Bounce up the cassette and I'm jumping between 1 and 2.

feck

Adjust the barrel - click whir

bounces down to seventh and refuses at 8.

Arse.

Fortunately my drag co-efficient is in the same league as Eddie Stobbart's finest so I rarely have the need to spend too long in my three highest gears - however on the rare occasions when I need the really big hammer to break the will of a perfectly innocent dude going about his daily business I wish it didn't take so much praying...

I'm close to blaming my shifters......

Very big cup of tea and some cake over the weekend - that will do it.

We now have ten biffs and 15 smug gits - I think the honesty tide is turning....

Bassjunkieuk

I've answered perfect harmony as my current commute bike shifts superbly up and down. This however is probably due to it only be 7 months old, so it's still running pretty much as it was when I got it! Think I did a small adjustment after the first time out and it's been good since. Get the occasional ghost shift, but some are so smooth I'm not even sure if I have changed, especially when it's only 1 tooth's difference on the cogs :-)

My MTB is another story all together! It's about 5 years old and it's a halfords full susser. The drivetrain has never been cleaned properly and even the adjustment barrel has not effect now! Gear changing on that thing usually means having to over shot then switch back to try and find the right gear! Thank god I dont need to ride it much and when I do I'm out with the kids so just stick it in an easy gear and I can keep up with em without to much hassle

_Brun_

I'm one of the 'bit dodgy both ways' types, if that's not a slur on my character.

Can't seem to adjust the indexing to change up and down without problems, but I've found a (relatively) sweet spot where it'll almost behave itself in the middle of the cassette at least. 5>6 often doesn't happen so I click again and it drops in, and then the next time I hit a speed bump etc it'll suddenly change into 7th. Great fun.

Greg T

Three cups of Tea later and much tweaking both subtle and profound and I have decided something.

When changing up from about the 15 cog the first click on the shifter is not sufficient to move it up to the next smallest cog - a move through first click is needed - more towards the full tlimit of travel....

I have lowered my expectations and am now much happier......

In effect when faced with a seemingly intractable problem - I've used the bigger hammer - and it's worked - genius.

So then - should the firtst click be enough to get into the top three cogs 12, 13, 14?

GT

batch78

My own bike shifts fine, and I managed to make a £80 Halfords full susser shift correctly (I won't say sweetly!) between all gears at the weekend, I am evidently a genius, or very very lucky.

el_presidente

check your derailleur hanger is straight & the chain has no stiff links & the cable is free-running

Greg T

el_presidente wrote:

check your derailleur hanger is straight & the chain has no stiff links & the cable is free-running

Grrr

Yellow card.

You've brought a Pork Pie to the communal extended Cohen Family derailier (I don't have the magic) thread picnic.

Do yours change up into the top three with only the initial click on the shifters?

el_presidente

Of course

1 click = 1 shift wherever you are on the block

Greg T

el_presidente wrote:

Of course

1 click = 1 shift wherever you are on the block

I hate you.

My hanger is die straight, my chain cleaner than the inside of my washing machine and my cables run smooth as butter........

I'm blaming my shifters....

Rubbish Ultegra shifters :oops:

karl j

mine work fine

(thanks to the fella in the bike shop)