Gear shift problem leading to broken chain

graeme_s-2

My name is Graeme and I am a lazy commuter.

I was riding my winter road bike to work today, as a week ago I got a puncture on my fixie, and I haven't repaired it yet. I'm rubbish with bike maintenance, so my winter bike is a bit grubby and not working as smoothly as it should do. About a quarter of the way to work I heard a loud clunk, and found I was no longer able to move my RH 105 shifter to shift the rear derailleur to a lower gear on my cassette. The brake lever just wouldn't push inwards and seemed to be jammed solid.

Weirdly I seemed to be stuck on the smallest cog, even though I'm sure I wasn't in that gear when the shifter jammed. I continued to work, mostly on the small chain ring on my compact chainset, meaning I'm running a horrible chainline, which of course means that 5 minutes later my chain snapped.

Luckily I was round the corner from a friend's house, who currently works at the same place as me, so I left my bike in his garage and got a lift in.

Repairing/replacing the chain I can cope with, but I'm not looking forwards to replacing the probably knackered STi

cjcp

The barrel/cable-hanger thingy inside the hood mighht have broken. Check that. Take the shifter off the bars, so you can get a full look inside.

UndercoverElephant

Being stuck in the lowest cod would imply no cable tension. My guess would be that the cable has slipped out of its seat and has caused the shifter to jam. Either that or the cable snapped and you were in the biggest cog at the back. Does the upshift lever make a click?

graeme_s-2

UndercoverElephant wrote:

Being stuck in the lowest cod would imply no cable tension. My guess would be that the cable has slipped out of its seat and has caused the shifter to jam.

I was starting to wonder if it might be cable related. I've had dodgy shifting going on for a while with the rear derailleur, even after a reindex, clean and lube, which might suggest the cables were worn/dirty I guess.

graeme_s-2

UndercoverElephant wrote:

Either that or the cable snapped and you were in the biggest cog at the back. Does the upshift lever make a click?

It was definitely stuck on the smallest cog at the back. Can't remember whether the upshift lever clicked or not. Not sure I bothered pushing it, given that I was already on the smallest cog.

UndercoverElephant

Graeme_S wrote:

UndercoverElephant wrote:

Either that or the cable snapped and you were in the biggest cog at the back. Does the upshift lever make a click?

It was definitely stuck on the smallest cog at the back. Can't remember whether the upshift lever clicked or not. Not sure I bothered pushing it, given that I was already on the smallest cog.

Sorry, yes that's what I meant. If the cable snapped, the rear mech would have gone to the smallest cog. Usually, this would make you try to shift to a bigger cog - which may have left the shifter at the stop for the top gear - hence the jamming. You may find that if you try the smaller leaver, it un-jams.

graeme_s-2

Thanks for the tips, will have a play this evening after I collect my bike on the way home from work. As I said, broken chain I can live with replacing. New STi would be depressing.

itboffin

Here's what you need to do ....

Box up the bike and send it to me, then pop along to your fav LBS / online store and buy and new one.

Simples!

:roll:

Or you could just buy a KMC quick link to repair the chain and from the sounds of it some new cable inners & outers assuming that your STI isn't dead.

Testing for dead STI, remove or release cables and try shifting up and down, if it works then replace the cabling if it doesn't throw a hissy fit bitch on here how you're never going to buy ShimanNO again then google cheap STI's

cough! if you'd had campag on the other hand pretty much everything is repairable, just saying....

graeme_s-2

Can you PM me your postal address itboffin?

snailracer

I completely removed my front derailleur, and left the chain on the middle ring. But that's on my mountain bike commuter which has a wide range on the rear cassette.

wgwarburton

Graeme_S wrote:

... I continued to work, mostly on the small chain ring on my compact chainset, meaning I'm running a horrible chainline, which of course means that 5 minutes later my chain snapped....

Five minutes of mild abuse shouldn't snap a chain. If this really was what pushed it over the edge then it was on its way out already!

Cheers,
W.

graeme_s-2

WGWarburton wrote:

Graeme_S wrote:

... I continued to work, mostly on the small chain ring on my compact chainset, meaning I'm running a horrible chainline, which of course means that 5 minutes later my chain snapped....

Five minutes of mild abuse shouldn't snap a chain. If this really was what pushed it over the edge then it was on its way out already!.

It may well have been. The chain did seem to have caught between the derailleur and the edge of the large chain ring (as this chainline was stretching it across this), so I think that was probably the cause.

graeme_s-2

Had a good look at it now. The STi is fine, and I must have just shifted it all the way "down" so it wouldn't click any further in that direction. The gear cable has snapped inside the gear lever. I've removed that, so now I just need to fix the chain and fit a new gear cable.

In other news I fixed the puncture on my fixie and I'm back to having one fully functioning bike again!

UndercoverElephant

Graeme_S wrote:

Had a good look at it now. The STi is fine, and I must have just shifted it all the way "down" so it wouldn't click any further in that direction. The gear cable has snapped inside the gear lever. I've removed that, so now I just need to fix the chain and fit a new gear cable.

In other news I fixed the puncture on my fixie and I'm back to having one fully functioning bike again!

*Takes a bow, waves to adoring fettle fans*

unixnerd

If the chain snapped I think I'd replace it. Mine snapped on my mtb, in all fairness I'd not been cycling for ages because the trails were covered in ice and snow up here so it hadn't been lubed that much but it wasn't rusty or sticking.

So I fixed it / lubed it and went out next day, it snapped again. I fixed it and it snapped a few miles later. Tried to fix it and this time my chain tool snapped in half! Just a cheap one and the cold had made it brittle :-( Luckily it's mostly downhill from Loch Morlich to Aviemore so I coasted a good bit of it.....