Originally Posted by
bromers13
Thanks for the info.
I did take a look on those sites but i wasn't really sure what i needed to focus my attention on, not having worked on a bike before.
Indeed the picture was upside down and on the small-small combination of gears. But i don't understand why this gear combination should be avoided? Surely the chain should not rub against the brackets in any combination?
I have attached a few more images.
Would i be right to conclude that: the
derailleur is not broken but i need to adjust the chain? And i should avoid this gear combination?
The derailleur is not broken, period; you need to adjust the chain length; three people have said not to use the combo.
The small-small combination is an extreme angle for the chain, which is noisy and can produce more wear. Because you are engaging the minimum amount of teeth front and rear it wears faster from that also. All multiple geared bikes have overlap, so there is a combination with the next largest chainwheel in front and a larger cog in the rear that is essentially the same gear ratio.
As for the sites, your problem was with the chain and derailleur, so you go to the pages for each of those and go through the procedure for every adjustment until you find one that applies and fixes it. Do not just shorten the chain by one link - follow the procedure on one of the sites for sizing the chain - you will learn something that way.