kans1989

Hello,

I'm new here. Bought a used bicycle recently, you'll find the details of the bike in the attached picture. I live in Aachen, Germany and there are a lot of slopes, so gears are very important. When i bought it, the chain, rear gears and gear cables were very rusted. The person who I bought it from suggested that I oil the chain and gears twice within a gap of the first 3 days, and it will become alright. Tried what he said, it worked. Now it runs almost completely noiseless. But the gear shifting on the rear wasn't perfect. Some gears didn't engage correctly, and there was an offset, i.e., the switching to 7th gear would actually put it on 6th gear, 2nd gear puts it on 1st gear, and 1st gear would make the chain fall next to the spokes. I watched some videos on adjusting the rear derailleur, and made some adjustments to make sure it didn't fall off, it works. But still there are problems with shifting, like sometimes it doesn't engage on a particular gear when switching down, but engages when switching up, doesn't go to the 7th gear at all when the front is on 3rd, completely skips the 2nd gear, etc. Checked the cassette itself, and there don't seem to be any obvious problems, like breaks or cracks. I'm not sure whether it's a problem with setting up the cable tension, limits, etc. or the parts itself. Can anyone please advice if I should look to replace the parts or if it is possible by just adjustment? Will post more photos if necessary

mcrow

Have you tried adjusting the cable tension? It could be there isn't enough cable tension or maybe too much. Also, if the cables were rusted there is a decent chance you could benefit from replacing them.

kans1989

Thanks for the reply. I've been considering that, actually. Do you think it would make sense to remove the existing the cables, oiling them and reinstalling them? Would that help at all?

kans1989

About your question whether I've tried adjusting cable tension, I have. But it seems either I'm not doing it properly, or if its a problem with the cable cos if I set the indexing right for one pair of gears (ex. 6th to 7th) it doesn't seem to work with a different pair. It looks like it needs different indexing for different gears, whatever that means

mcrow

Well, if you know how to replace the cables it might be worth trying that but you have to know how to do it and then know how to tune the derailleur pretty well. There can be quite a bit if tuning involved whne replacing the cable. Then the cables are likely to stretch some after use so you'll have to tune some more.

If you are not comfortable with that I'd probably have your local shop look it over.

kans1989

Here the prices for bicycle service are unbelievably high. I took it to a shop nearby last week and he wanted 20€ just for the gear adjustment! So I think it's time for me to learn the art of repairing my bike!

mcrow

OK, I would probably go over to park tool's website and watch some videos there and maybe get a repair manual so that you are as informed as you can be before doing the work.

kans1989

Sure. Thanks for the tip