Good morning friends,

I’d like to be able to say I was drunk, or distracted by a butterfly, but really it was just a stupid mistake.

I meant ant to tighten my brake cable, and instead loosened and readjusted my rear derailleur cable.

I’ll pause while you all laugh and prepare your mocking replies, God knows I’ve earned them.

Now it won’t shift into the two highest gears. Before I go mucking it up worse, what should I do? I have adjusted dozens of derailleurs, but I’ve never run into this problem, albeit sadly of my own making.

Mark

Just loosen the cable (screw in the barrel adjuster) until it shifts correctly. If you go too far and need to tighten it, first shift into high to relieve tension in the cable so you don't strip the barrel adjust threads, and to make it easier.

Start with one turn, repeat, then when it gets close use half and quarter turns. Often the final adjustment is a quarter turn.

There's probably a second barrel adjuster at the derailleur.

Was your shift lever in the highest gear (smallest cog) position when you reattached the shift cable? I'd start from scratch at this point. Remove the shift cable, shift the shift lever to the highest gear position, reattach the cable with no slack and readjust shifting until it indexes properly using the barrel adjuster(s).

Do as HillRider suggests, thenfollow this procedure: https://www.parktool.com/blog/repair...eur-adjustment

Thanks, I truly appreciate the advice. I was thinking of how to do more of a reset. I see a reply about that below. I like to leave the barrel adjustments for emergencies or short term fixes.

This is what I was looking for. Thanks a ton!