Question on Gears
 

Hi

First time poster... I purchased a new MTB in April, a Giant Revel 1 - it was only £450, not a serious machine like I guess some of you have - but budget is limited, and I wanted a new bike - Giant kindly offered a 1 year service deal (as many times as I wanted) but it's a 75 mile round trip to the dealer so while useful, I don't want to go every week...

Question is, it has Shimano Acera 24 speed drivetrain which I believe is one of the cheapest on the market - and whilst I don't pretend to understand the difference between them all, virtually every 50km or so, my gears need fine-tuning as I can start to hear metal-on-metal even in the middle gears. I am loathed to start messing around with the set-up myself as I'm not an expert and I fear all I would do is make them worse!! But is this normal? Should I expect better/longer from my gearset without having to tune them again? Should I consider upgrading once my 1 year service period is up - would this improve things? If so, upgrade what to? Would a better quality drivetrain actually mean I don't have to tune them as often?

Sorry if stupid questions! Go easy on me! :)

Hope someone can help with advice...
thanks

here is the spec by the way

http://www.giant-bicycles.com/en-gb/....1/9346/49908/

It's not the parts quality. You may be hearing the chain rubbing the front derailleur cage -- your job is to turn the front shifter slightly to "trim" it and avoid the chain rub.

Thanks - it is where you've described yes, so I'll take a look when I get home later today

Looks like you've got what you needed already. I'll also suggest you buy yourself a copy of "Zinn and the art of Mountain Bike Maintenance". It's about £20 from Amazon and will show you how to do everything from fix a flat to strip down and overhaul your bottom bracket and build a wheel from scratch.

Also, keep in mind your bike is new. Cables will stretch a bit, so you'll need to use the barrel adjusters at the shifters to take up the slack. You'll know you have a problem when you can't shift onto the big sprocket in back. After a while--100 miles or so--things will settle down and you won't have to adjust it again.

that's very helpful, thank you!! Just ordered it! I'm also intrigued as to how you build a wheel from scratch - but then the book might help with that!! LOL - thanks again for the advice...

good point about the new bike thing... I'm just loathed to touch gear config and set-up if it's at least working - i've had issues with previous bikes and gear set-up, and I experienced the "wobbly table leg" syndrome, and never, ever got them working again - but I'll read up on it, and see if it helps. I guess I could also ask the guy who services the bike at my next service, thinking about it...

Lots of fascinating stuff in there, I haven't used most of it as yet but read through most of it many times out of curiosity.

Derailer gears are confusing at first. When I got my current mountain bike it came with the modern dual-lever shifter. I thought I'd never figure it out. One day, though, I was having problems with it staying in gear, so I had to start messing with adjustments. My first attempts made things worse, which meant I was adjusting the right thing in the wrong way. After some more tweaking I got the bike working better than it ever had; Performance I'd accepted as being "just how these things work" turned out to be due to basic misadjustment from the day I bought the bike.

So, I encourage experimentation. The more you know about this the better off you'll be when something breaks. I was riding with a friend one day when the cable to his rear derailer broke at the shifter. We still had a long steep hill to climb, and being stuck on the smallest sprocket would have made it unpleasant. We used his multitool and some cable ties to anchor the cable with the derailer on one of the bigger sprockets, and then used the barrel adjuster to make it run smoothly. He then had a three-speed with decent ratios.

yeah, useful info, thanks for that

i decided to experiment tonight, with the help of the book, and some youtube videos on the subject, and indeed it took a lot of patience but I have made it a lot better - I am going to have to invest in a stand now though!! LOL

really appreciate all your replies, and help guys - thank you!