How difficult for a novice to set up gears ?

Tjgoodhew

I have a bit of an issue and as one of my cycling challenges for new year is to learn how to maintain my bike myself and im about to take the plunge !!!

My OH bought a road bike - a ladies Marin with 9 speed sora and a triple up front. After a few rides in the summer she was having issues shifting the front. The main issue was getting into the small ring at the front. The derailler just didnt seem to shift far enough and instead it just rubbed the chain. Its her first road bike and she would then panic and manage to knock the chain off. Its dented her confidence a bit and she hasnt rode since.

Me being the man around the house decided to try and fix it and after about 2 hours of fiddling i managed to make it a lot worse.

The bike has sat gathering dust since and altho its booked in for a service at the LBS i thought i would try and give it one last go. I got a bike maintenance book for xmas so will follow that as well as a bit of help from Youtube.

But how easy is this to do for somebody with zero experience with this sort of thing. Im guessing the fact its a triple makes it a bit more tricky too.

For some of the more experienced riders how long did it take you to get the hang of this ? And any tips for me to make it easier?

Thanks

markhewitt1978

It's not the most straightforward and there are a few gotachas along the way, but your front mech will probably just need the limiter screws changing, pretty simple really.

zardoz

There are loads of helpful videos on Youtube its fairly straightforward.

larkim

I sympathise / empathise. "Just adjust the limiter screws" always seems such sensible, easy advice - until you find that the bike came with the limiter screws set at their extreme end in the first place, so no amount of adjusting actually makes a helpful difference. So you end up releasing the cable and trying that. Then you realise that you need a "third hand" tool. Then you realise that the cable has been mashed from your hamfisted attempts to get it right. Then you have to re-cable the shifter. Then you feck up something on the handlebars. Then the brakes are knocked out. etc etc

Perhaps its just my experience, but it seems to be that if the bike arrives home and wasn't put together by a thoughtful and well experienced bike mechanic, any adjustments you make make any problems you have worse!! And because you are a novice with it, you don't know when you are making things worse.

I have a terrible track record of this with my kids bikes, to the extent that my eldest had to bail out at Llandegla last weekend as I'd "tweaked" his brakes so well that they didn't work at all.

Time to pay for a LBS service...

Matt

Tjgoodhew

larkim wrote:

I sympathise / empathise. "Just adjust the limiter screws" always seems such sensible, easy advice - until you find that the bike came with the limiter screws set at their extreme end in the first place, so no amount of adjusting actually makes a helpful difference. So you end up releasing the cable and trying that. Then you realise that you need a "third hand" tool. Then you realise that the cable has been mashed from your hamfisted attempts to get it right. Then you have to re-cable the shifter. Then you feck up something on the handlebars. Then the brakes are knocked out. etc etc

Perhaps its just my experience, but it seems to be that if the bike arrives home and wasn't put together by a thoughtful and well experienced bike mechanic, any adjustments you make make any problems you have worse!! And because you are a novice with it, you don't know when you are making things worse.

I have a terrible track record of this with my kids bikes, to the extent that my eldest had to bail out at Llandegla last weekend as I'd "tweaked" his brakes so well that they didn't work at all.

Time to pay for a LBS service...

Matt

I think you have just described exactly what i did and the situation i am now in. I released the cable, tried to move the derailer, had the hoods off and all sorts.

larkim

:-)

I think it is a truism - a well set up bike is easy to maintain; otoh, a poorly set up one is harder to maintain. And as a novice, you've no idea which of those two you've got!

Matt

YellaBelly

Poor shifting issues are usually just down to cable stretch which occurs over time, and the tension will only be very slightly off. Fiddling blindly will usually make it worse, as only a small tension adjust is needed to get it right.

However, the front derailleur not going down to small ring isn't caused by a lack of cable tension, but too much cable tension. So it's unlikely the cable is at fault. If it used to shift and now doesn't, your limiter screws shouldn't be an issue either as it could previously move far enough to shift the chain. It's likely the front mech has got knocked/twisted, and now isn't aligned properly to drop the chain. Thats probably worth an LBS visit if your not overly comfortable with gears.

kajjal

Front mech setup is one of those jobs that needs three hands. If you take your time it is easy enough to get right after a few attempts. All you can really adjust is cable tension and the limit screws. That is unless some genius has not attached it to the bike in the right way which would need sorting out as well.

dj58

Was the bike purchased new from a LBS? If so you should have been offered a free "service" after 6-8 weeks of use. The front derailleur may not have been set up correctly, did it ever shift down into the small chain ring? It could be as simple as cable stretch needing to be taken up or the limit screw adjusting. I'd contact the bike shop, if that's where you bought it from, and ask them to sought it out for free, if it has not already been back for it's first free "service".

For the future it is a good idea to learn how to setup and adjust your front and rear derailleurs as this will save you time and money. You said that you had a maintenance book so refer to that, as well as the Youtube clips that are available. Global Cycling Network have a lot of how to video clips on bike maintenance, there are some guides on bike radar, also take a look at the Shimano europe cycling website, in the Tech Support/Tech Docs/Road Bike there are PDF documents (the light blue coloured Links) for most of the groupsets that show you exactly how to set up front and rear derailleurs.

Tjgoodhew

If i remember rightly it never really shifted to the small ring. Sometimes it would and sometimes it wouldnt. The bike has only covered maybe 60 miles and hasnt had its free service from the LBS it was purchased from.

It is booked in their for a service but i see this is a perfect opportunity to try and learn how to do it myself

CiB

Gears are trivial - it just needs a bit of thought, not three hands or multi-tools poking out from everywhere.

Think what you're trying to achieve - a front mech that can push the chain in both directions to each adjacent cog. So it needs the upper & lower limits of travel to allow that to happen. That's yer limit screws sorted.

The other trick is to transmit the lever movement from the bars to the mech - that's the cable. The cable needs to have enough total movement to go from top to bottom, so make sure that you start with the cable pulled through and that the indexing is on the last click before you start.

Put it all together, and take up the slack. It might not work first time but the target is deceptively simple and easy to lose sight of in the mix of inner & outer cables, mechs & brake + gear levers. If the cable just goes slack on the lwoest cog and the limit screws are about right the middle gear will sort itself out.

Personally I'd be inclined to start from scratch rather than tinker with something that's already wrong, if you can't get it. I have noticed that cheap nasty BSOs from supermarkets are very awkward to get spot-on; Ultegra is a 5 minute job with a cup of tea in one hand and TMS on the wireless.

Edit. Buy her a set of Di2 for her birthday. You can index them from the saddle doing 30mph on the flat.

markhewitt1978

larkim wrote:

I sympathise / empathise. "Just adjust the limiter screws" always seems such sensible, easy advice - until you find that the bike came with the limiter screws set at their extreme end in the first place, so no amount of adjusting actually makes a helpful difference. So you end up releasing the cable and trying that. Then you realise that you need a "third hand" tool. Then you realise that the cable has been mashed from your hamfisted attempts to get it right. Then you have to re-cable the shifter. Then you feck up something on the handlebars. Then the brakes are knocked out. etc etc

You've been watching my attempts at reindexing haven't you!

Keith1983

When you're doing any adjustment the trick is to do a little at a time and makes ure you know where you started. So don't just wind something blindy an unknown number oif times and then try find out if it is better or worse. Make some sort of mark or reference point and try a little bit at a time. If it makes it better, keep doing a little at a time, if the improvement stops then stop there. If it makes it worse, return it to where you started and try again.

papavero

Go to the manufacturers web site and download the installation instructions
Follow the instructions
Don't panic, It's simple!

If you can't find instructions for your system use the shimano or campagnolo instructions

secretsam

OK, and for rear mech that won't hit bottom gear? Or a wider cassette?

gozzy

Easy rear indexing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkzvfCaIbyQ

awavey

for gears, I just say pay the LBS the £5 or whatever yours charges to adjust them, I spent ages turning those screws bit by bit when mine went out of kilter and never found the sweet spot for it, and after months of getting nowhere finally cracked took it to the LBS, who cured it within the day, and it ran like a dream and then I wondered why on earth I hadnt done it sooner.

I dont know I get most bike maintenance fixing a puncture, replacing tyres, changing the chain, those are pretty useful skills to learn, some might even say crucial skills, but learning to fettle fiddly gears properly just seems an overkill to me.

dennisn

zardoz wrote:

There are loads of helpful videos on Youtube its fairly straightforward.

As above. Find out how to do it FIRST. Then do it. Also, one of the keywords in "zardoz"s post is FAIRLY.

Tiesetrotter

I can get the front mech' on Campagnolo to work fine. But just try balancing the tension to the right level to make it do the micro indexing. It is a wonderful thing when it works .......... but I think in a year that has happened only once.

Just off to spend another hour getting the rear indexing perfectly. All these bloomin engineering advances and still punctures and cables are the issue!

markhewitt1978

awavey wrote:

for gears, I just say pay the LBS the £5 or whatever yours charges to adjust them, I spent ages turning those screws bit by bit when mine went out of kilter and never found the sweet spot for it, and after months of getting nowhere finally cracked took it to the LBS, who cured it within the day, and it ran like a dream and then I wondered why on earth I hadnt done it sooner.

I dont know I get most bike maintenance fixing a puncture, replacing tyres, changing the chain, those are pretty useful skills to learn, some might even say crucial skills, but learning to fettle fiddly gears properly just seems an overkill to me.

Same, looks easy in the video, but tried adjusting mine for about 2 hours and just ended up making it worse. LBS guy had it fixed up while I watched in about 2 minutes.

buzzwold

Right. The limiter screws are nothing to do with indexing on the rear mech. They limit travel to stop the rear mech going beyond the range of the cassette and catching you wheel or frame. The front mech limiters do the same, but the difference is you need to get these so that the front mech moves the chain and then doesn't rub. This part is a bugger.

Indexing on the rear mech is pretty simple. Once you've got the movement from small cog to next cog up to work then all the others will work.

Try
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkzvfCaIbyQ

Easy to follow.