Help in finding a way to drop my front derailleur lower

mchinnas
mchinnas Posts: 3
edited February 2011 in Workshop
Hi All,

I have recently acquired a new frame and moved my Shimano 6700 components over to it and have run into a slight problem. Perhaps one of you have had this issue and have a solution.

My frame (Parlee Z5) came with the Parlee carbon clamp for use with a braze-on front derailleur. I am using Shimano 50/34 compact cranks. The Parlee is designed so that the carbon clamp fits between the two bolts for the water bottle cage mount. Its VERY thin and thus can squeeze into the slight gap between the cage and the seat tube. However, it is also wide so I don't have much up and down flexibility.

Unfortunately, with a compact crank set up, I can't lower the carbon clamp enough to get the desired 1 mm gap between my derailleur cage and my large chain ring. Some of you with a fixed derailleur mount with a slot for your derailleur may also have this issue.

So far I have thought of only two solutions for this. I can get a standard derailleur clamp and use washers to move out my water bottle cage to account for the extra thickness of the clamp. A standard clamp is vertically thinner than Parlee's carbon one and thus, gives me a 1/2 cm more drop. A second option is to fabricate some sort of curved metal piece with two holes. One for the normal mounting screw and the other for clamp.

Anyone had this issue and come up with another option? Are there any ready made adapter clamps out there? Or do you simply run with a larger gap between derailleur and chainring and deal with a dropped chain every now and then?

Thanks!
MHC

Comments

  • Get one of these for the inner ring.

    Rotor Chain Catcher


    And set you limits tight on the upper and the gap wont really matter

    I use rotor Q rings which are 50 teeth but has a largest ratio of 53 teeth so there is quite a gap on part of the circle. Rarely drop a chain but if I do it is not a major drama.
    Racing is life - everything else is just waiting
  • Good bit of Parlee design that.

    A couple of grommit/thick washer things would work. But take a tumble and it runs the risk of you ripping out the bottle fixings and potentially wrecking the frame.

    At least the clamp isn't lining up with one of the bottle fixing points. Or is it?

    I would be inclined to get used to life with just one bottle cage.
  • John.T
    John.T Posts: 3,698
    I ran with a larger gap (5 or 6mm) on my Trek 5200 when I was using a 48 big ring. Never had any problem with chain unshipping. The change was not noticably worse either.
    Could you not file a bit of the clamp away to enable it to go a little lower.