Originally Posted by
bhdavis1978
The mechanic is coming to work tomorrow to take a look at the bike. I am curious/excited to hear what he has to say about it. I just want to get this damn thing to shift properly. I agree that the symptoms seem like a hanger, but I've had two people look at the hanger and they both agreed it was fine. The thing is, if the rear triangle is bent somewhat, wouldn't that cause similar symptoms to a bent hanger, since the rear end of the bike wouldn't be aligned with the middle.
And on that note, today I tried to ride my bike without my hands --- and i couldn't. It kept pulling to the drive train side. So maybe that reinforces a bent frame?
I'll take some photos of my bike and frame tomorrow and post them.
..the inability to ride straight with no hands is a classic symptom of a misaligned frame.
The shifting depends on the positional relationship of the rear derailleur cage to the rear wheel cogs, so that's less likely to be solved by realigning the frame. But from your description it can't hurt to try it. Make sure the final step is to check and adjust the parallel alignment of the rear dropouts.