Gear Troubles
 

Hi There,

This is my first post here on Bike Forums. Great website by the way! I recently bought a Specialized Rockhopper Disk 05 (UK) for commuting to work. Up until now my bike has been working flawlessly. Yesterday when I was cycling to work, I was riding in the top chain ring. I went to change down the gears on my cassette and I changed down about 3 gears. But then I had to almost push the shifter past the gear I wanted to get into to get into that gear. I've been looking after my bike really well since I got it. This is really bugging me as I'm missing my smooth shifting! Has anyone got any ideas for me to try to fix this?

Cheers

Danny Boy

It sounds like your bike is broken-in and is ready for its free tune-up at the shop where you got it. In this case, it sounds like the shift cables have gotten all settled in and need a small adjustment of the derailleur's adjuster, but since you have a free tune-up and it will address this, why not. :)

If you want to fix this in the short term, then rotate the rear derailleur's adjuster barrel counterclockwise as viewed from the rear, about 1 turn, and see if it syncs up now.

Welcome to BikeForums, by the way :)

Thanks for the quick reply mechBgon. I've had my bike about 4 months now and have in fact already had my first free bike service. So I'll give that barrel adjuster a turn and see if that resolves the issue.

Danny Boy

Certainly :) and another thing to check, is to shift to a gear where the rear derailleur's pulley cage is more or less vertical, prop the bike upright, and view your drivetrain from the rear. The rear derailleur's pulley cage should be "in plane" with the bike. The rear derailleur can hit the ground if the bike falls over, and can also get abused in other ways, with the net result that the part of the frame which the derailleur bolts into becomes misaligned (and/or the derailleur itself gets bent too).

If it looks noticably out of alignment, then have the shop align it. You can find further info on derailleur adjustment at Sheldon Brown's site (www.sheldonbrown.com) and Park Tool's site (www.parktool.com) too.