Hello fellow bikers,

I have a fairly new 10-Speed bike that is outfitted with all Dura-Ace accept the crank. The crank is a Truvativ Rouleur. The chain is even Dura-Ace as well as the cassette. I have a problem that is really bugging me and causes me grief when I’m on my trainer or on the road. When my chain is on the large chain ring and in the middle of the cassette it’s smooth as can be but when I shift to the smaller chain ring during a medium to hard pressure stroke my chain gets stuck and seems to wedge itself on the large chain ring tooth. I literally have to get off the bike and grab the chain firmly by hand to dislodge the chain from the tooth. This morning it happened twice in minutes while training. My chain is lubricated and squeaky clean. Run-out on chain rings are within .005. What could be causing this? Do I have a defective chain, large chain ring or is my front derailleur slightly out of adjustment? Included is a pic and hi res pic link that shows the stuck chain and it always gets stuck in this area of the large chain ring just above the crank arm.

http://www.taclatch.com/chain2.jpg
http://www.taclatch.com/chain.jpg

Check the height on your FD, it could be too high. Also, it could be a defective/crappy big chain ring-The "hyperglide" grooves may be too smooth from the nickel plating, or they're just not etched deep enough.

you could start by lubricating the chain-it looks dry.

It looks that way cause its clean as stated in my post. The chain is lubricated.

I have the same crank and find the large ring troublesome too. I even changed mine recently not out of wear but because of bent teeth and finally a broken one. I could not figure out what did this and don't think it could have been derailleur alignment.

Your post and pic is having me thinking of design flaws. Wrecking a chainring like this never happened to me before.

What I don't get however from your pic and description is how the chain can stay stuck there while pedaling without either falling on the small ring or coming off altogether.

Also check if the ring is mounted correctly, not all teeth are designed uniformly for the very purpose of shifting. Is the stud that keeps the chain from getting wedged positioned behind the crankarm?

Those Truvativ Rouleur cranksets are iffy. I broke one while out testing a bike equipped with a D/A RD, cassette and chain. I was making a left turn and I had the bike in the large chainring and 23 cog. As I was standing up to accelerate onto the side street, I felt something give way and I almost fell to the ground. I pulled over and found that the chainring had cracked at a rivet and had pulled away from the crank. The bike had 1.5 miles on it. Word is, is that it was a freak accident, but I've also heard that Truvativ has redesigned the chainrings for unknown (or known!) reasons.

I'd check to make sure that your chainrings are in good shape. There could be something about to fail, and it's manifesting itself through lousy shifting.

I hear that those cranks are slightly too wide for a 10 speed chain. It's made for a 9 speed chain so the chainrings are slightly wider than you'd get on a 10 speed crankset. At least, that's what I've heard.

However, I have the aluminum version of the Roleur triple and Ultegra 10 on my Scattante. I haven't run into problems yet. <knock on wood>.

I know, I couldn't believe my eyes either. That last link you see in the image is actually stuck on the tooth so firmly that it will not release from the chain ring. The chain travels all the way around stuck and eventually slams my frame.

I called Truvativ this morning and talked to a man named Rich. He said I must have a flawed ring and to see my LBS for warranty replacement. I'm thinking of going Dura-Ace instead. There's too much on the web about this setup that has me concerned. I just wish I didn't have to spend more money to get something to work properly.

What cog are you on when you change from big to small ring?

Are you cross-chaining? If you're using the the small ring, the best
way to keep things running best is to stay in the bigger half of the
cassette, maybe one or two cogs into the smaller half of the cassette.

Likewise if you're in the big ring, try to stay in the smaller half of the
cassette although you have more leeway to venture into the bigger
half (because chain can't rub on the big ring because of chain angle).
Straying too far into the bigger half of the cassette puts a lot of side
load on the chainring and chain (e.g. big ring breaking while in 53/23 combo).

A Dura-Ace crankset would solve all your problems. And it would look hot too!

+1 :beer:

As stated in the post, I'm on the middle cog. There is no cross-chaining taking place at all.

Assuming it has a 130 bcd, couldn't you just put FSA, or D/A rings on, as opposed to a whole new crankset? (assuming you can't get the Truvativ rings to work)

I had no idea you could mix manufacturers on chain rings. Is this wise?

Yes I think you can, DA rings would look goofy though.

No problem and this will for sure save you some cash. My wife rides a Specialized Sirrus Sport Disc and the front shifting sucked. For the life of me I couldn't get it to shift properly and my LBS couldn't do much better. Then I realized I had a Shimano Tiagra ring set laying around so I put them on and instantly the shifting is perfect. Shimano has a bunch of patents on their ramps and pins system and the others are simply copying it as close as possible without violating the patent. What happens is it isn't as good. FSA is pretty good, Campy has their own system that works fine. Sugino (what was on the Sirrus) isn't so good IMO and apparently Truvativ doesn't quite have it either from a lot of what I have read. But since the BCD of your cranks is either 130 mm or 110 mm then you can get rings from Shimano or FSA and give them a shot. FSA Pro Road rings run like $30 each...the Shimano are a bit more depending ont he ones you get. For sure I would give that a shot first.

Some options: http://aebike.com/page.cfm?PageID=30...ils&sku=CR5672
http://aebike.com/page.cfm?PageID=30...ils&sku=CR1763
http://aebike.com/page.cfm?PageID=30...ils&sku=CR4014
http://aebike.com/page.cfm?PageID=30...ils&sku=CR4016

You can also try Specialties-TA rings.

1 plus

Yep, I'd do that too. You should get an upgrade deal + free labor from the LBS for the trouble.

Yeah, i was unhappy with the Truvativ Rouleur rings too, and replaced them with FSA (I'd had good results with the FSA on my track bike), which I felt made the shifting noticeably more positive. The truvativ chainring bolts are great though -- allen key on both sides, rather than the silly notch on the back face -- so hang onto those.

I'm running Dura-Ace 10 as well.

Ah, I read over your post too quickly. In that case, I'd go with a Dura-Ace crankset.
If you want to try it, find a used crankset to snag the rings from, new rings are expensive!

Try shifting with a little less pressure on the pedals.

I have the same exact problem with the truvativ crank... You can get around it sometimes by shifting and taking slowly pedaling.. Pretty lame. Get a new crank.

I've read about these chainrings flaking off their finish. Personally i do feel the chain rings are kinda flimsy, especially compared to the FSA rings on my synapse.

I hope i'll never get in a crash, but i look forward to replacing the rings with shimano or fsa rings in the near future.

As for your problem, it almost seems like a case of chain suck, but i've never heard of it happeneing on the big ring. I definitly haven't had that problem on my carbon rouleur's. Hope you get taken care of at your local shop.

The problem is with the bike...it is a cheap Taiwanese frame from a nobody company that is causing BB flexing problems...



Just kidding. Obviously!! :p I hope you can get a new chainring. My FSA has been nearly flawless. I've got an FSA Gossamer MegaExo with Dura-Ace chain and it's been great. Hopefully a new chainring might be a relatively inexpensive fix. That crank looks awesome on that bike though! Good luck.