So yesterday while grumpy eldest son Chris and my beautiful dishy wife (she might read this!) were at work Ben & I went around to my sisters house. Her hubby is currently on a project overseas and we chatted to him via Skype and webcam. It turns out he's pretty good with bikes so I explained the problem with my gears only seeming to mesh on the rear largest and smallest cogs and he tried to explain what the problem could be to me. Sadly I'm a numpty and most of it went in one ear and out of the other.
But this morning I was determined to at least try to do some of what he said. My first challenge was to get the bikes wheels to rotate while stationary. Paul had said that turning the bike upside down possibly wouldn't work so I came up with the following - probably due to me watching too many A-Team or McGuyver episodes*
But this morning I was determined to at least try to do some of what he said. My first challenge was to get the bikes wheels to rotate while stationary. Paul had said that turning the bike upside down possibly wouldn't work so I came up with the following - probably due to me watching too many A-Team or McGuyver episodes*
"Tell me your secrets or you'll hang like a dead dog forever"Well I soon sussed out that it was the read derailleur which was the culprit but couldn't see any way of adjusting it, so making a note of the make I consulted Google and found a very helpful website that told me there was an adjustment (trimming) barrel on the gear lever. Setting the gear to the smallest cog and switching up a gear can be trimmed by rotating the barrel so that this fine tuning enables all of the gears to be selected. Took a while but I succeeded. I then remembered Paul had told me pretty much this the day before. See? I'm dense!
Adjustment barrel / trimmer shown just below the gear selector.Just to show how dense I can be, I then thought I'd tinker with the front 3 cog selection. I'm still not sure what the two spring loaded screws do on the front selector cage thing but they seemed to do nothing whether I screwed them right in or right out. Ignoring those for now I tried to do the same with the front trimmer barrel as I had with the rear.
Its at this point I buggered things up and found I could no longer select the biggest cog. I was turning that barrel like a lumberjack rolling a tree down a river but to no effect. I decided to concede that having gears 1 to 10 was better than I had before and left it at that.
Its at this point I buggered things up and found I could no longer select the biggest cog. I was turning that barrel like a lumberjack rolling a tree down a river but to no effect. I decided to concede that having gears 1 to 10 was better than I had before and left it at that.
Strangely, on our ride into town that afternoon the full 15 gears started working again - and NO SLIPPING. Yeah I know - I'm bloody great! I don't know how I do it sometimes. No really! I have no idea how I did it!
* Just like to add that Mc Guyver was waaaay better than the A-Team.
Glad to see you worked it all out! Its amazing how each and every little screw and bolt and twisty thing on a bike can make such a drastic difference!
ReplyDeleteSome times, you get the bear, some time the bear gets you. My mtb was being a bugger when getting on top of it. It wanted to ghost shift at the wrong moment. A good cleaning and lubing, a slight rear barrel adjust - right as rain. Behaved itself like a gentleman this last Sundays jaunt. Pays to keep it clean.
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