Can't shift to the big cog!
tomhowells
Posts: 171
Hoping some kindly soul can help me!
A bit of background first. I have 10 speed Tiagra on a Moda Intro. I was cleaning it last weekend when a gust of wind blew the stand over & ever so slightly bent the rear mech hanger.
I took it to my not so LBS (25 miles away) to get a new hanger, but they said I would have to have 'gear service' as well. Not knowing an awful lot about bike maintenance, I thought I would take the hit this time & learn about maintaining it myself afterwards.
Anyway, got the call, picked it up & put it in the car (I had to drive to work while the bike was in the shop) and drove home. When I got it home, I put it on the stand to check it all over, and it would appear that my 10 speed is now a 9 speed. Changing from smallest to largest cog is quite rough, but functional, but when I try and engage the biggest cog, it feels like the shifter has reached the end of the cable, has nowhere left to go. When I come all the way back down to the smallest cog, on the last shifter change, the chain wants to come off.
The rear derailleur didn't look in line with the cogs as it was changing and was making a rattling noise, so I gave the limit screw a quick turn & that seemed to sort it out. I also gave the barrel adjuster near the shifter a few turns to see if I could sort out the rough shifting in between the smallest & largest cog. All ok, seemingly, but I still can't get it onto the big cog at the back!
What am I doing wrong?
I know the obvious advice would be "take it back to the LBS & get them to sort it out", but to be honest, after seeing the bodge they made of this, I wouldn't trust them to fix a puncture! Also, they are 25 miles away & it's a pain in the backside to keep going over there. If I can do more & more myself, that's got to be a good thing, surely?
Sorry for the essay!
A bit of background first. I have 10 speed Tiagra on a Moda Intro. I was cleaning it last weekend when a gust of wind blew the stand over & ever so slightly bent the rear mech hanger.
I took it to my not so LBS (25 miles away) to get a new hanger, but they said I would have to have 'gear service' as well. Not knowing an awful lot about bike maintenance, I thought I would take the hit this time & learn about maintaining it myself afterwards.
Anyway, got the call, picked it up & put it in the car (I had to drive to work while the bike was in the shop) and drove home. When I got it home, I put it on the stand to check it all over, and it would appear that my 10 speed is now a 9 speed. Changing from smallest to largest cog is quite rough, but functional, but when I try and engage the biggest cog, it feels like the shifter has reached the end of the cable, has nowhere left to go. When I come all the way back down to the smallest cog, on the last shifter change, the chain wants to come off.
The rear derailleur didn't look in line with the cogs as it was changing and was making a rattling noise, so I gave the limit screw a quick turn & that seemed to sort it out. I also gave the barrel adjuster near the shifter a few turns to see if I could sort out the rough shifting in between the smallest & largest cog. All ok, seemingly, but I still can't get it onto the big cog at the back!
What am I doing wrong?
I know the obvious advice would be "take it back to the LBS & get them to sort it out", but to be honest, after seeing the bodge they made of this, I wouldn't trust them to fix a puncture! Also, they are 25 miles away & it's a pain in the backside to keep going over there. If I can do more & more myself, that's got to be a good thing, surely?
Sorry for the essay!
Boardman 8.9 SLR - Summer
Holdsworth La Quelda - Commuter
Moda Intro - Winter
Planet X Stealth - TT
Holdsworth La Quelda - Commuter
Moda Intro - Winter
Planet X Stealth - TT
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Comments
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Sounds silly, but i spent years of my youth fiddling with gears when indexing first came out, blindly, with very limited success. Which is where you are now.
Over the years I have learned to overcome man's basic instinct to ignore the instruction manual. Download the manual from the interweb, because it sounds like you need to check the end stop setting, but you need to read the installation intructions.
The state of your cables will make a massive difference, friction is your enemy. It took me years to learn that the loop of cable by the rear deraillure should not be too short [critical more with SRAM].
Welcome to the world of fettling!0 -
Sounds very much as if the numptie at your local LBS set up the cable on the rear mech without making sure the shifter was clicked all the way up to the highest gear.
To see a vid that explains simply and clearly how to go about re-indexing your gears - take a look at the following:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkzvfCaIbyQ
It's not rocket science so the best advice is to go back to first principles as in the above video.0 -
I have a similar issue. Takes ages for my gear to change to the smallest cog. And it slips on the next two cogs up. Is it a case if turning one of those two little screws? Have a Cabrera tdf 2011 version0
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As mentioned above, the 2 screws adjust the extremes left and right of the derailleur. It has most definitely been adjusted wrong. If you want to save yourself some money and a trip to the LBS again, look on youtube for indexing gears and do it yourself with no more than a crosshead screwdriver needed.
You are best taking the chain off and moving the gears all the way to their top and bottom gear and looking at the alignment to the teeth. If it looks like its moving too far over, adjust one of the screws until it moves back in line. The screws should be as you look at rear of bike, bottom or L is for big ring (left stop), top or H is for small ring (right stop). Once happy, pop chain back on and run gears, barrel adjustments will be needed to fine tune as they will be jumpy until you adjust them to the gears after the extremes have been set.0 -
Thnx for the youtube link. I was having similar issue. Just fixed it my self. Took me fair bit of time though. But it was good experience.
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The satisfaction of fixing it yourself!!!0
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I spent nearly a year trying to index my poorly set up Ribble Stealth, buying more cable and other accessories (fron Ribble!) to try and fix the issue. After then buying another bike which was setup by Dolan with the same Sram group, I can confirm my Ribble came with a bent RD and a FD that that threw the chain most of the time. Indexing wasn't even attempted in my opinion (B-Screw gap was an inch from the jockey!?) under load the rear gears would fall down the cassette etc.
I couldn't believe that after installing and programming car ECUs that I couldn't even index a set of bicycle gears! After calling Ribble and explaining my frustrations, they said the shift-stiffness and poor indexing could well be a limitation of the frame with it's internal cable route and Sram groupset combination. Palmed off basically.
I took it into my LBS and for £15 they straightened the RD, put new cables in, re-indexed and had the bike back the same day.
The point is, indexing is VERY easy ONLY if your bike and other crucial components are also in 100% working order. If not, you'll waste endless hours chasing your tail in frustration like I did!Ribble Stealth/SRAM Force
2007 Specialized Allez (Double) FCN - 30 -
CRAIGO5000 wrote:After calling Ribble and explaining my frustrations, they said the shift-stiffness and poor indexing could well be a limitation of the frame with it's internal cable route and Sram groupset combination.
Is this Ribble pretty much admitting that their own frames are crap? If they can supply a bike and say they cannot handle the groupsets they put on them, why the hell would anyone buy from them?0 -
So they sell a frame and group combo they acknowledge is a problem, nice! Wonder what other turds they're polishing and making a nice profit on. Best avoided I'd say.ARTHUR
"Hello oh great one"
LARRY
"Are you talking to me or my ass?"0 -
arlowood wrote:Sounds very much as if the numptie at your local LBS set up the cable on the rear mech without making sure the shifter was clicked all the way up to the highest gear.
It's not rocket science so the best advice is to go back to first principles as in the above video.
The most important thing is to ensure that you correctly set the stop for when you change up onto the largest sprocket on the back.
Take particular care with this as if you wrongly adjust it the rear mechanism can hit the spokes which will lead to a world of pain (and expense) with bent frame dropouts, snapped rear mechs and messed up wheels
As stated above its not rocket science but do take special care.
Regards
AlanRegards
Alan0
