Bicycle Mechanics - Help! Hit a snag here...

on my Bike Friday. I was working on the front der. with my friend when she accidentally let the wire that holds the der. in place go. Since then, we haven't been able to get it to align correctly, so the bike won't shift out of the smallest chainring. We are kind of out of ideas on what to try. Does anyone have a suggestion of what we could be doing wrong?

Thanks!

Koffee

on my Bike Friday. I was working on the front der. with my friend when she accidentally let the wire that holds the der. in place go. Since then, we haven't been able to get it to align correctly, so the bike won't shift out of the smallest chainring. We are kind of out of ideas on what to try. Does anyone have a suggestion of what we could be doing wrong?

Thanks!

Koffee


Make sure your shifter is in the smallest gear. Then, pull the cable very taught with a pliers whilst your friend cranks down the allen bolt... it sounds like either your shifter and der. were in different postions or you dont have enough cable tension.

First, get your freind away from the bike. Now, do you mean the cable is not held by its binder bolt? If so, shift the shifter to the low gear, pull the cable tight against the binder bolt(It will go by the side with the slot, look close there is one) and tighten the bolt. When I say tight, I mean snug. If you have the adjuster at the shifter a few turns out you shoud have enough turns to fix, to tight/to loose a cable to get proper shifting. Shift up to the middle ring and see if you get rub while in the big cog in the back, if so you need to loosen the cable (adjuster clockwise, looking at it from the stem) If you have no rub, shift to the smallest cog inthe back. If you have no rub now, you are good, if it rubs you need to turn the adjuster at the shifter counter-clockwise a bit to increase cable tension. Since it is a Bike Friday and they have kind of a funky geometry, be prepared for a little rub at one extreme or the other, and adjust the direction that suits you best.

Edited for inability to tell clockwise and counter clockwise :rolleyes:

Ok, I did what you said, Rev, and now, it just won't shift to the largest chainring. It moves all smooth to the middle chainring and the smallest one, but the largest one? "Nuh-uh" this chain is saying. :(

What's up next?

Koff

Ok, if anyone has an answer, I will be up all night. I just pulled the front der. off the bike and I'm sitting here wondering what I should do next. Friend is gone, so it's just me now. *sigh* Less than 48 hours before I have to board a plane with this, and it's looking pretty bleak.

Koffee

sounds like the limit screws, which are the two screws on the front derailleur. one controls how far you can shift into the smaller ring, the other controls how far you can shift into the big ring. make sure the one that controls how far you can shift into the outer one is loose enough so that you can move the derailleur out enough. or you can screw around with the barrel adjuster some more too.

sd

If all you were doing was re-adjusting cable tension and didn't touch the limit screws before then I would strongly advise not touching them now. Go back and retry what Rev.Chuck suggested but playing with the limit screws is asking for trouble I think.

Thanks to everyone. I think that somehow, the derailleur got stripped because the screw won't go in now at all. So I'm going to get like 2 hours of sleep, get up, finish my corporate paperwork, do some packing, go teach my classes, then call the shops and see who I can throw a potful of money to so they can install a new derailleur on it pronto. Then I'll run and teach my second class and hopefully by then, it'll be ready to pick up so I can get the rest of my errands done for the day.

Koffee

Something else to check would be if the cable housing slipped out from one of the cable guides. I see this hapening a lot when people work on the deraileur and it is very often over looked.

:beer:

Whoa what a mess. I threw that bike in a taxi and rushed up there this morning to the authorized dealer of Bike Friday. They fixed it while I ran off to teach class and go to my doctor's appointment. It turns out I was just trying to screw it in wrong, and they gave me new cables since we'd frayed the old one in the process of adjusting. So it's all good now, and no charge either! I promised to bring them back some coffee beans from Italy, so it's all good over there with them.

Oy, that was a mess!

Koffee