gabeham206

I've seemed to develop a problem, I was out climbing a hill and noticed my chain kept slipping while trying to get into my lower hill climbing gears. Would this mean my rear derailleur needs to be adjusted? Also I noticed the chain was partially catching on the front large ring at times while I was pedaling in the smaller front ring. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Andrew R Stewart 

There's many possibilities of issues, or not, with your initial description.

Rear slipping (if you've correctly stated the problem) can be caused by a bad cable tension (index coordination), bent hanger, wrong limit screw settings, damaged chain or tooth, bad free hub body ratchet, and cable friction. There's a few more on this list but these are what come to mind first. go through the list and correct/eliminate each possibility. If you can't then your try doesn't count and go to some one who can.

The second issue, chain catching on the small ring, could be simple cross chaining. With modern short chain stays, wide rear cog sets and narrow ring spacing with lift pins sticking out it's a common issue that the chain will catch/snag on the inside of the large ring when the chains is in the outer small cogs. learning to not use those combos is the fix, if this is the problem. Andy.