Bicycle Mechanics - Orbea Orca Front Mech Adjustment

Hi there, I've been looking at the orbea orca recently and have noticed what I believe to be a design flaw.
The gear cable stops are integrated into the head badge and feature no adjustment. This is fine for the rear as there is index adjustment on the mech but not the front. Now I realise that you can fit barrel adjusters in the cables but this would be very difficult on Dura Ace or New Ultegra where the gear cables run under the bar tape and should you have to on a bike costing over £5000? Am I missing something? Have Shimano made a front mech that suddenly doesnt need index adjustment?

My bike also has no adjustment on the FD, I thought that was normal anymore except where they add inline adjusters.:)

Just put it on a stand and adjust via loosening the cable clamp on the derailleur (with it on the small ring). Once mine's set I rarely have to mess with it.

My CAAD8 frame also has the housing stops on the headtube- very common on Aluminum and CF frames. I have inline adjusters on the cables between where the cables leave the bar tape and where they hit these stops. But in 4 years, I've never had to touch them.

Manufacturers are just stupid about not providing adjustments (cf. most any cross/touring bike, anything with road levers and canti brakes). If an inline adjuster is required, frame designer made a mistake IMO. Sadly this is all too common.

Alternately, someone is stupid for not manufacturing a barrel adjuster that fits into a standard slotted cable stop (there's the jagwire "mickey nut", which sucks as it scratches your paint, is hard to turn with tension on the cable, and is no use on cantilever cable hangers. doesn't count. Then there's inline cable adjusters, which happily unadjust themselves as you ride. Those don't count either.)

I just found out that the newest Shimano mountain r-ders no longer have the adjuster at the der! -- sucks to be a drop bar rider.

I completely agree! With the latest dura ace and ultegra its difficult to fit an inline one as the cables run under the tape. Its really important to get the indexing right and to have no provision to adjust out cable stretch or anything is just stupid. As a cycle mechanic I'm not really happy to just pull it tight and hope for the best. Its strange how no body mentions this in reviews?

You shouldn't need to touch the FR adjustment once the bike is properly set up. In my opinion most people fiddle with their FD and RD far too much. Other than installing cables and a rear wheel swap, you rarely need to touch the rear der. The logic of riding down the road trying to fine tune your shifters is like a bad cartoon.

You shouldn't need to touch the FR adjustment once the bike is properly set up. In my opinion most people fiddle with their FD and RD far too much. Other than installing cables and a rear wheel swap, you rarely need to touch the rear der. The logic of riding down the road trying to fine tune your shifters is like a bad cartoon.
All of this is true but you do have fine tune the shifting during initial installation and, usually, at least one more time after a few rides as the cables bed in. Lack of cable adjusters makes this very difficult to impossible. Being unable to adjust the shifting on-the-fly isn't a big deal but you should be able to do it on the repair stand.

Shimano's MTB rd's no longer have a barrel adjuster since they have adjusters built into the shifters. If you use them on a road or touring bike you are hosed unless you fit an in-line adjusters. Nobody's front derailleurs have barrel adjusters so if the frame doesn't have on or you can fit an in-line adjuster you have no ability to tune the fd at all.

My newer Litespeed frames came with welded-on headtube mounted cable stops that do include threaded adjuster barrels. I would not want a bike without them or at least dt shifter bosses that could be fitted with bolt-on cable stops.

You shouldn't need to touch the FR adjustment once the bike is properly set up.
I agree but how are you supposed to properly adjust intial front mech indexing without an adjuster in the first place. Or if you replace a cable. Im a cycle mechanic and its impossible. It all becomes trial and error! The more I look at modern bicycle design the more I realise we're going backwards instead of forwards!

Yeah, I like 'em too, just that it can be done with a tad more work. Also, the allowance for margin of error on the FD is greater, you don't need the precision that you would on the RD. I think it is the bike mfgers trying to make a sleeker/cleaner look. One of my many bikes is a Klein with internal cable routng and while it looks great is a major pain to replace cables. Also have a Litespeed and hate the headbadge area for the stops.

Also, the allowance for margin of error on the FD is greater, you don't need the precision that you would on the RD.
I dunno. For Campy brifters with their micro-shift capability, close-enough-is-good-enough may work. For Shimano STI, the tuning has to be very accurate to index properly. Of course for friction front shifting with dt or barend shifters, the initial adjustment can be very crude.


Also have a Litespeed and hate the headbadge area for the stops.
I don't understand this unless you, like the OP, want to have downtube shifters. The cable stops on the Litespeeds are small, unobtrusive, have good barrel adjusters and keep the cable housing from rubbing against the headtube.