I haven't actually measured mine yet, but I'm curious: I looked down one time, and noticed that the chain was about parallel to the top tube somewhere inbetween 4th and 5th on my freewheel, while on the small chainring. Is that an optical illusion?

[When I took apart the BB, I found a Sakae MTBS411 crank axle. I measured 125mm rear dropout, and I run a 6 speed SIS freewheel.]

Why would it be an illusion? Double or triple, that's about right.

I figured, the low chainring would be centered on the lower gears, and the upper chainring on the upper ones. It looks like the upper chainring is centered for like top gear--I guess that makes sense, if the lower chainring is about centered on the freewheel, I could ride that most of the time, and just use the large ring in the last couple of gears for downhills.

Just wasn't sure what I was setting.

Your middle chainring up front should line up with the middle sprocket in the back.

What we have here ... is a fail-yuh to communicate.

When you say 4th or 5th (out of 6), do you start counting with the little sprockets or the big ones?


Just go out and measure the front chainline. It's a two minute operation. (Fifteen if you have to do arithmetic. )