Gear shifting problem with new bike

ForumNewbie

After several problems, I found a further problem with gears on my wife's new hybrid bike last week after LBS advising me gears were fixed.

When I ride it in middle or biggest front chain ring, and move into high gears (small rings) at the back, the chain rubs/rattles against the right-hand inner side of the front mech. I reckon this must be because when I shift up and down the front 3 chain rings, the front mech is not set to go into the correct position.

As it is a 3 chainring bike, I reckon the front mech is wrongly indexed. Am I right to assume it should be easy for the LBS to adjust it to correct the problem?

John.T

It sounds as if the cable needs a bit more tension. Try screwing the cable adjuster on the rear mech anti clockwise as you look down the cable. Just take it 1/2 a turn at a time and it should sort it.
EDIT. OOOPS. Must think before posting. I did know it was the front mech. Touch of brain fade.
You will find Parktools site very helpfull for things like this. Bookmark it for future reference.
http://www.parktool.com/repair/

andy_wrx

John.T wrote:

Try screwing the cable adjuster on the rear mech anti clockwise

...err, not the rear mech, there's no problem with the rear mech, it's the front mech that's rubbing...

The front mech works by the cable pulling the front mech to the right, i.e. onto the larger chainrings.
If you release the cable, a spring in the front mech pulls it back to the left onto the smaller chainrings.
If your front mech has the chain rubbing on the inside (left) of the cage, then it's slightly too far over to the right and you need to move it slightly to the left, yes ?
So you want the cable slightly loosening, so it doesn't pull it so far to the right.

You need to loosen the cable by screwing-in the cable adjuster a bit (depending on what gears your hybrid has, this'll either be on the side of the headtube/top of downtube, or inline on the cable, or at the shifter itself)
With the cable on the middle or big rings, it's pulled tight and you might not be able to turn it, so shift to the smaller ring to make it slack first.

John.T

OOOPS! See edit above.

John C.

I agree with the above BUT this is a new bike so take it back and let the s*ds sort it out. We have some great LBSs out there and we have some useless ones , a good one will have sorted this a bad one won't and deserves all the hassle you can give them.
Feel better now rant over

ForumNewbie

John C. wrote:

I agree with the above BUT this is a new bike so take it back and let the s*ds sort it out. We have some great LBSs out there and we have some useless ones , a good one will have sorted this a bad one won't and deserves all the hassle you can give them.
Feel better now rant over

Thanks for all your replies.

I quite agree John. I wasn't going to try and meddle with it myself in case they blamed me. I took it back this morning and explained the situation to the one guy at the LBS who is particularly helpful and knows what he is doing. He firstly just adjusted the cable screw, but as it was still rubbing in some gears he had to adjust the actual cable.

It seems generally okay now as it is only rubbing a bit in the highest back gear when in the middle front ring. The LBS guy said that we shouldn't really use that gear - i.e. it would be better in moving from the middle ring to the big front ring rather than go there. That's fair enough although with any other bike I have had I have been able to move right up from the lowest to the highest back gear while in the middle front ring without the chain touching the front mech.

So I'm still a wee bit disappointed that it is still not perfect. My wife is willing to give the bike a go, but she is a bit disappointed about the whole thing after the initial excitement about buying a new bike.

John C.

ForumNewbie wrote:

John C. wrote:

I agree with the above BUT this is a new bike so take it back and let the s*ds sort it out. We have some great LBSs out there and we have some useless ones , a good one will have sorted this a bad one won't and deserves all the hassle you can give them.
Feel better now rant over

Thanks for all your replies.

I quite agree John. I wasn't going to try and meddle with it myself in case they blamed me. I took it back this morning and explained the situation to the one guy at the LBS who is particularly helpful and knows what he is doing. He firstly just adjusted the cable screw, but as it was still rubbing in some gears he had to adjust the actual cable.

It seems generally okay now as it is only rubbing a bit in the highest back gear when in the middle front ring. The LBS guy said that we shouldn't really use that gear - i.e. it would be better in moving from the middle ring to the big front ring rather than go there. That's fair enough although with any other bike I have had I have been able to move right up from the lowest to the highest back gear while in the middle front ring without the chain touching the front mech.

So I'm still a wee bit disappointed that it is still not perfect. My wife is willing to give the bike a go, but she is a bit disappointed about the whole thing after the initial excitement about buying a new bike.

Glad you are now sorted, tripple chainsets can be a pig to set up to get all the gears and I'd go for getting botttom gear rather than top any day, Now all we need is a bit of sunshine and summer awaits.

ForumNewbie

John C. wrote:

Now all we need is a bit of sunshine and summer awaits.

Absolutely. With the strongs winds and threat of rain this morning I couldn't tempt my wife to come out with me on her new bike. I went out and only got caught in one heavy shower but one country road was so wet and covered in muck I looked like I had been off-roading when I got home. I'm now trying to get out to clean my bike as it has never been so dirty, but have retreated back indoors after a heavy hail and snow shower. Roll on summer!