Secondhand bike, noisy front mech, please help!

WheelioJT

Hello

I've just bought my first road bike - a Trek 1000SL - and it's generally great. I'd never really ridden much before and i'm really enjoying it. The only problem I'm having is when the gears are set to the smaller (lower??) of the two cogs on the front mech. It makes a sort of grinding/rattling noise when i pedal.

Can anyone offer a fix? A friend mentioned that it could that the gears are not alligned quite right.

Appreciate any help.

ollyridesfirst

Your friend is exactly right....it just needs re-aligning probably...

Take a look at the link to do it yourself....a couple of screws and a bit of fiddling, but easy enough is you have a stand etc.

http://www.parktool.com/blog/repair-hel ... djustments

Wooliferkins

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tQxJqGVznM

craker

Google is your friend.
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=adjusting+a+front+mech&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a


Depending on your bike there's probably a barrel adjuster on the downtube (that's the one that slopes from the steerer to the bottom of the bike where the cranks are). Give it a twist in the direction that makes the cable tighter (anti-clockwise). That will move the mech. away from the frame.

There are also limit adjusters - screws on the mech itself which limit how far it moves the chain. You need to be a bit careful with these as they stop the front mech throwing the chain on the chain rings entirely.

If you can identify the one which adjusts the bottom stop, screw it down so it limits the movement of the front mech.

So all in all there are two screws and one barrel adjuster; if you're brave start tweaking until you've sorted it. You might make it worse to start with but through trial and error it's easy to sort out.

WheelioJT

Thanks for the help, i'll give it a go tonight.