I gotta update this story. This has been an amazing journey. For those of you that have been following this, you may recall that i was having trouble. I spent about 3 hours trying to adjust a rear derailler after i replaced the cable and housing.

Come to find out, the problem was that the LBS had hooked me up with friction cable and housing for my index shifters. So i went back to LBS and he said, ok and gave me some compressionless housing. I kept the same cable. He just got the cable from a bulk roll and measured it using a Trek 4500 that was in the stand. It has the same frame as my 4300.

So he charges me 3 more dollars for the new housing. I have now spent $12 total on one wrong housing, one correct housing, and one cable. So i go home and put on the new housing. Everything seems fine and shifts great in the stand.

FF to next morning. I ride to work. The bike shifts flawlessly until the trip home. Then it starts to have a hard time upshifting. Then it won't ride on the second to inner most cog. Crap! What is wrong now?? I get home and put it back in the stand. No matter what i do i can't get it adjusted. I now have $12 invested and over 4 hours of labor.

I give up and call him at LBS. I told him i am bringing it in. I take the bike in and he looks at it. "I see your problem. That one housing (seat stay) is way to short. That is my fault, he says. since i cut it. I think i cut it using an 18" frame instead of your 19.5." I left the bike overnight and went back today.

"Well that was it. It should be fixed now. Five more dollars please." OK, so now i have $17 invested in trying to replace ONE cable and housing. One might read this and say, "well you should have just taken it to the LBS to begin with, if you don't know what you are doing."

Actually the opposite was true. If i never would have went there and my Jenson USA order would have gotten here on time, i would have had a 15 minute job of fixing my cable and it would have cost be about $4 total. Instead i went to the bike experts and it ended up costing me tons of time and frustration and more money than it was worth.

Lesson learned. I can change derailler cable. I have done it before with no problem. I just am not good enough to defeat the bugs that the LBS put into my bike. (BTW, I just ordered a bunch of cable and housing, ends, ferrules etc. online-this won't happen again.)