cornwallis

I have a bike that has a few hundred miles on it. Lately, whenever the chain is on the smaller cog up front (2 cogs not 3) most of the gears are almost unusable. They just wont stay. clicking, and any hard pressure and it slips. If its on the bigger front cog, no worries.

Is it just cable tension? if so, what to adjust? Unfortunately, the bike shop i got it from is hours away.

Now i have mechanic books, and ive adjusted cheaper bikes but thats been about 10 years since ive messed with them. I figured i would check here before i start dicking around my nice new gear


Thanks.

cbfight

If the bike shifted fine before and has not gone through any significant drops/crashes, it's 99% cable tension. All cable stretches to a certain extent, especially new stuff. Try turning the barrel adjuster on the rear derailleur a quarter turn CCW (outward) and see if it improves things.

edit: reread your post and saw that it was happening when in the smaller chainring. It might not be an indexing problem, just symptoms of one. Again, more information would be nice such as if you've crashed/dropped it, how well it was shifting before, anything you might think may be relevant. Usually cable stretch makes it difficult to shift from the outside (small cog) inward (large cog). If you're having trouble shifting in either direction, you may have bigger problems.

Something else is when talking about the chain rings in front around the cranks, that's what they're called. Cogs make it sound like you're talking about the cassette in back.

cornwallis

Gotcha, thanks for the terminology.

It shifted fine before, this just started a day or so ago. No drops or anything. First all carbon bike, so ive been extra paranoid of it, heh.

I'll try adjusting the cable tomorrow.

cornwallis

That seemed to work. Did 27 miles today and no problems. Thanks a ton