Tiagra trouble

Simontheintrepid

Hi, can anyone shed light on this problem, I'm not very techie I'm afraid so hopefully it's not too stupid. I've got Tiagra mech throughout.

I was out and about to attack a large hill a few days ago when something seemed to happen suddenly to the left shifter (or the front derailler) and I got stuck in the larger chainring. Having played about a bit with the tension I got it going, but sounding like it was scraping in the larger ring.

Also, I noticed that the left shifter is now very easily going into a 'third' gear that doesn't exist when I change down. When I change up, the derailler doesn't stay in position so I can't now get into the larger chainring at all, no matter how much tension I put into it. When I hold the 'gear up' lever the chain just scrapes along the larger chainring and on the rare occasions I get it up there, it just gets pushed back down by the derailler.

It would seem not, but can I practically do anything to repair this? The bike's under 2 months old, had a service a few weeks ago and probably hasn't done more than 200 miles so seems a bit odd. I've booked it in for a gear service at Evans but is there anything else I can do (I don't have full confidence in the store and after a few other things, a bit fed up of having it out of action)?

Thanks in advance for any advice.
Si

sungod

if the shifter has broken that soon in normal use then evans should fix it under warranty

i wouldn't bother waiting for the service, take it in and say "it's faulty, please fix it"

don't attempt to touch it yourself, they could use that as an excuse to say you caused the problem, remind them that they're the only ones that have serviced it

MRadd

+1 for taking it in. Better to let them replace it. Just don't go in and be aggressive.. try and be nice about it, almost apologetic and you never know, they may do it quickly under warrenty!

Worked for me with SRAM, but then I only had the rep to sweet talk..

2alexcoo

It may be that nothing is broken and just some adjustments are needed.

If the bike won't shift into the big ring this suggests there isn't enough tension on the front derailleur cable. This could be due to cable stretch, or the cable may have slipped if the retaining bolt isn't tight enough.

If the front derailleur was trying to force a downshift due to the above when you were climbing (ie under load), this can easily cause the chain to jam as described.

With the bike stationary in the small chainring, set the shifter so that the indicator window is in the correct position for the small chainring. The exposed front derailleur cable under the downtube should be taut and not have any slack in it. If it does, undo the cable retaining bolt on the front derailleur, pull it through to take up the slack, and retighten.