Lovenutz

I think the cage is bent, but I'm not sure. Looking to get some help from the experts. I will take it to my LBS tomorrow and see what they say too.
If it is the cage, is it possible to bend back into shape? Give me some good news, I bought this bike mainly for the Suntour Cyclone GT

hhnngg1

I'm not going to comment on your photos as unfortunately, I've never trusted checking by eyeball the alignment of my derailleur.

I recently fixed two misaligned derailleurs on my 2 bikes which were slightly off, but off by enough to cause significant in-between shifting on either the top or bottom end of the RD cogs which was driving me nuts.

The adjustments with the hangar adjustment tool were small. It was clearly off when you used the hangar adjustment tool, but without it, there was no friggin' way you'd be able to eyeball it. The distance it was off by at the far end of the tool was about 1.5cm, but that's measuring with the tool arm at the the braking rim surface - if you're trying to eyeball the derailleur, it'll be several times smaller than that you're trying to reliably eyeball.

cny-bikeman

An expert cannot tell for sure from a photo, but a simple bend inward is almost invariably at the hanger, as there is no means to apply force to the cage to achieve that effect. If the cage is twisted - oriented to the left or right - then either the derailleur/cage or the hanger could be twisted, but again it's more often the hanger.

cny-bikeman

I agree. I had shifting problems after returning from a trip from Italy, and strongly suspected a hanger problem, as the bike box looked a bit mistreated when it came off the plane. After checking everything else, and failing in my attempts to align by eye I finally took it to a shop where they let me use the alignment gauge, and sure enough that fixed the problem. I had previously aligned many, many derailleurs by eye, but that was almost all back in the days of only 6 cogs max, where tolerances were much more relaxed..

FBinNY 

It's impossible to judge anything meaningful from a photo, because the camera angle can mask problems or create the illusion of one when there's not. However, cages don't magically bend by themselves, so absent clear visible scuff marks or other evidence of impact, it's pretty safe to assume the cage is OK.

So, here's the easy way you can check hanger alignment for yourself.

1- shift the bike to a gear combination that has the cage as near vertical as possible.
2- use rubber bands, string, or whatever to attach a broomstick, or other straight edge vertical against the back wheel as close to the hub as possible.
3- squat behind the bike and look straight on from the rear, comparing the cage to the broomstick reference. They should be parallel. If the bottom is closer, and absent clear evidence of damage to the cage, the hanger is bent, and you need to straighten it and readjust both limits and the trim afterward.