...it's actually worse than you've let on. A couple of weeks ago I had to sort out some godawful hybrid bike for someone, that came equipped with a very low end Shimano indexing system. Probably a Mart bike originally, it had been given to my friend, who fiddled around with it and replaced the front derailleur cable.

This particular front derailleur had a cage that was stepped, so it was wider at the bottom portion, narrower at the top.

I suppose it was designed with the idea that it needed to be narrower at the top for the shifting push, then wider at the bottom, to accommodate a wider chain angle variation.

Anyway, somewhere along the line a previous owner (or possibly my friend), had dropped the front derailleur position too low. With the cheap, low end. front indexing shifter, you couldn't really trim the thing to avoid chain interference with the cage. It took me a couple of minutes of head scratching to figure out what was going on, and I had the damn thing in front of me. Mart bikes are like that. I momentarily flashed back to my Saturdays working at the bike co-op. PTSD, I think.

But don't let me get in the way of another pointless exchange with you know who. I, for one, am enjoying it.