Not quite sure how to title this thread but a couple of us who own Tough Road SLR1's lost our chains over the large ring and wondered why. The TR has a Sram 2 x 10 gear set and it looks like Giant has set the front derailleur height above the front chain ring incorrectly, according to Sram's specs.

Sram specs shows the front derailleur cage height above the large chain ring should be between 1 - 2mm and the bike comes from the Giant factory (I assume) with height closer to 10 - 12mm.

Here's a pic of the factory height setting versus Sram's 1 - 2mm recommended height.



I'm curious, are settings like this something most people check when taking delivery of a new bike?? or should one expect the factory to set the components according to the manufacturer's specs? and why wouldn't they?

Short discussion HERE

Discuss this with the dealer you bought the bike from First.

I suppose if you drop the front derailleur any further the cage will hit the chainstay.

One questions please- it correct work? If you answer Yes why yet questions?

she said she is dropping the chain off of the big ring.

OP go to the LBS you bought the bike from. should be a free and quick analysis and fix

Too high. As other have said, take it back where you got it - should have been adjusted properly before they handed it over to you.

Front Derailleur Adjustment | Park Tool

Thanks and I agree the fix should be easy and I will just take care of it myself but I haven't purchased a new bike in a long time and was simply wondering if it is common for a factory, in this case Giant, to ignore the component's spec and set it where they think it should be? Or more the exception?

Agreed Billy, but would you expect Giant to adjust it properly from the factory? The LBS only unwrapped it and handed it over and I'm sure they would adjust it. No real problem, just curious more than anything.

Probably the person doing the build at the Giant factory was sick the day they taught how to install and adjust front derailers.

Bottom line is its your bike and you can now do what you want. You can either take it to the dealer to adjust, or search online for a SRAM manual for that derailer and adjust it yourself. IMO, doing it yourself is far more valuable as you learn how to fix stuff.

Thanks Steve,

I'll do the work myself for the reasons you state and again was just a bit curious so I thank you for your response.

My experience is bikes are adjusted pretty well from the factory. Sometimes well enough to ride. But on occasion they aren't, and that's when your local bike shop should be earning their keep and doing a once over before they hand it over to you. If all your LBS does is take it out of the box, put the handlebars and wheel on - well then you might as well buy from Bikesdirect.

It's an easy fix. If you loosen the cable be sure to pay attention to how it's routed though.

Yeah good points. I test rode it and the rear derailleur was balking when up shifting and the folks at the LBS fixed that right up but losing the chain only happened once right after I got it home and I figured it was user error. Another TR SLR1 owner had his chain coming off regularly and he posted the Sram spec and we both saw that both our bikes were set up incorrectly with the derailleur too high.

I haven't had a problem since that first episode and it's a pain to shlep my bike inside my car to the LBS where I am sure they'd be more than happy to re-adjust but I rather like working on my own stuff and will re-adjust it and see if that has any negative/positive effects.

I lowered the front derailleur today, probably about 3 - 5mm. I only lost my chain one time with the previous setting and with the lower derailleur height I think the shifting 'might' have been a little crisper but hard to ignore the placebo effect. Seems a bit more solid when shifting.

That as delivered setting is way too high. Also, anyone who would let a bike out of their shop like that most likely didn't bother to properly adjust the limit screws.

Did you have the chainrings changed out? It looks like if you lower the derailleur to the proper clearance from the big ring, it'll either hit the chainstay or the inside of the cage will hit the inner ring. Like it's not the correct derailleur for that chainring set.

Definitely take it back to the dealer to get it fixed.

That picture must be deceiving somehow as there's no problem at all after lowering the derailleur with the stock chain rings. Took 5 minutes and it's all good.

A shop I managed in Santa Barbara offered life-time warranties on the bikes they sold, so we pulled everything apart to make sure it was assembled correctly from the get-go.

Most shops are not as thorough in their assemblies...