I have a 50/34 on my crank with Ultegra 6700 FD (bottom pull) and Dura Ace STI shifter (don't know the model of the shifter). When I shift onto the 50 chainring, my FD rubs on the outside of the chain and will knock it onto the 34 chainring if I'm on one of my larger rear gears. I've looked at various FD adjustment tutorials (Park tool, Shimano instructions, and some Youtube videos), so I know some things I'm *not* doing wrong:
FD cage is parallel to large sprocket
I have a penny's worth of clearance from the large chainring
I've loosened the barrel adjuster to get more tension
Upper limit screw gives me about 1 mm clearance on the outside of the large chainring under manual tension

Nevertheless, the only way I can prevent the rubbing is to hold my left shifter lever all the way in or to manually pull on the cable, which gives me a little more clearance. My only thought is that maybe a tooth isn't catching in the shifter. Can anybody give me any advice on the next step?

The lever has some overshift capability which you're using by holding it in place. Based on that I suspect that you simply have the cable too long (not enough tension).

Here's an easier way to cinch up the cable. Shift to the outer ring, and stick a pencil or something into the FD mechanism to jam it so it can't move all the way in. Shift the lever back to the inner position (no need to pedal because you don't actually want to shift. Pull all the slack out at the downtube like you're drawing a bowstring. Set the adjuster to the slackest position.

Now open the pinch nut and pull down the slack. You don't have to pull it all out because the FD isn't all the way in (that's the trick). Tighten, move the FD out and free the pencil, and let it move in. Hopefully you weren't Superman and ended up leaving enough slack for the FD to move all the way in, but if not, loosen the pinch nut slightly so that you can gently pull the wire through and add a bit of slack.

Finish by fine tuning with the adjuster.

What I did was put the derailleur over the large cog on the front, adjust the high-limit until it was where I wanted it when I pushed on the derailleur by hand. I had my wife hold the derailleur while I loosened the cable nut and pulled the cable taught and then adjusted it finely using the barrel adjuster. This way I got it right where I wanted it over the large gear and used the barrel adjuster to fine tune it.

Doing it solo I would use a zip tie to keep the derailleur pushed in. It's essentially the same thing as the poster before me is saying but I used the high-limit to do it instead of a pencil .

There are other ways to do it - the directions to do it are a bit different - but I was having issues with chain rub in the largest cog so I adjusted it at that point and the rest 'fell into place'.


You can do it exactly like they show in this video but it was more difficult for me to get it to quit rubbing on the larger gear this way.

Thanks FB and Mike. It took a little trial and error, but I was able to get things working more smoothly. I found it was a fine line between bumping the chain on the big ring and not being able to shift down to the small ring.

Yes, it always is.

A very fine line indeed.