SRAM X5 shifters and general wonderings!

Kerbdog

Hi there,

Im completely new to mountain biking at the age of 31 and have some (probably very stupid) questions.

I picked up my Boardman Comp HT last week and went out for my 1st ride last Sunday, managing about 18 miles on old railway paths/roads. I was pretty chuffed with this sort of distance on my 1st ride although i did find myself pushing it up a few of the steeper hills.

However, the chain seemed to be skipping a bit when changing gear making it almost impossible to for me to change gear and keep momentum whilst going up hills. Basically the chain would sometimes clank about then change gear or do nothing for a bit and finally change 10m or so down the road. So I had the bike back at Halfords and picked it up yesterday so gonna go out tonight and see if its any better.

Since im new to this i was wondering could there be anything that im doing wrong to cause this or was it just set up incorrectly?

Also can anyone tell me why the front shifter uses the clicky lever to go down the gears (3 to 1) and the rear shifter uses the clicky lever to go up the gears (1 to 9)? Just curious as to why they work opposite ways.

Finally, is there any way to change the sensitivity of the non-clicky lever (probably not a technical term that) especially on the front so it doesnt have to be pushed so far to change the gear.

As i said im completely new to this so any help you can offer to increase my understanding of how things work is greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
Rob.

nicklouse

the cables will have stretched in use and just needed the tension increased.

and nope there is nothing you can adjust on any levers to change the throw.

and that is the way they have always been to do with they way things were designed back in the day.and how more force was needed in one direction than the other.

Kerbdog

Cheers for the spedy reply.

Given the bad press Halfords get i did at one point wonder if they had connected the levers up the wrong way! lol

I suppose it does make sense if you think about it in terms of cog size rather than up/down gears.

Anyway cheers again.

Rob

PS Probably gonna have a few of these pointless question over the next few weeks.

Anonymous

come back wih as many questions as you have. sometimes they can be answered in advance by using the search function but there are always tonnes of folk happy to help.

Kerbdog

Believe it or not i did a search on here and google, it appears everyone already knows the answers to my questions and they dont need to be asked! lol

nicklouse

top tip have a look at the parktools site.

linky in my sig.