Hey guys, today i finally got around to getting a new tire for my fastest road bike thats been sitting outside for a few months, and now the front deraileur is having issues. The bike started in the granny gear (have a tripple) and when trying to shift up there was a lot of resistance which I pushed through. Then when shifting down the derailleur wouldn't move, id have to kick it to get it to manually shift. the cable seemed really lose, so i tightened that black plastic nut and it didn't resolve the problem. Now when downshifting the derailure moves, but I have to force the downshift and im worried about damaging the components. My favorite bike shop is closed until tuesday, but I want to do a fast group ride tomorrow with my newly fixed racing bike. They stay in the big ring for almost all of it, but I would like to use my little dudes for some of the hills because im heavy.

My question is, would "forcing" the shifts on the front potentially damage the components to where a simple adjustment by an expert doesn't fix the problem? This bike really hates cross chaining, I really need to shift the front down to avoid that, but which would be more damaging to the bike? Thanks