What the hell are you reading???? If it is due to "composition, design or fatigue", then I have clearly "figured out the problem". And that hanger will (no longer) hold position under shifting and chain tension loads, as well as normal handling.

Do you really not understand that some hangers are trash?

However in the OPs case they hadn't figured out the problem and in your case I would question your judgement in this case because you are having a lot of problem hangers which is uncommon. I don't know what hangers you have on these bikes but replacing hangers is not common unless you have crashed or the other reasons we have talked about.

Yes there are probably a few bad hangers out there but if you believe that someone is having to adjust their hanger 10 times in a short period is normal, it is not. Having worked on some pretty bad bikes I haven't really run across these bad hangers, they weren't great but they certainly never needed adjustment 10 times or immediate replacement (unless otherwise damaged).

I've been the service manager on and off since 1990. Every bad hanger that ever came through my department got a look from me. So I don't know if you are just unaware of how many bikes a mechanic sees over many years, or if this is just the best you can do to discredit my (vast) experience.

No, flimsy hangers were not a common experience. But if you do anything enough, you will see them and have to deal with them. The ones I got the customer to replace were either better quality (aftermarket or factory), less fatigued or harder metal.

And this sort of thing is obvious. You see the bike come in once, straighten the hanger with almost no effort and then see it back a month later with the same minor bends that screw up indexing. You go into the box of hangers, compare with an alternative maker and it often solves the problem entirely. Especially when you set the alignment on the new one and it is clearly twice as stiff as the one it replaced.


I'm going to lightly agree with Spoonrobot - you come across as the typical bike shop owner/personality that the mechanics try to keep away from the tools.

Sorry, missed your post.

Yes, the more gears you have the worse small errors add up. Mainly because an error of 2mm is a much larger percentage of a close spaced cog than a wide spaced cog.

The other problem is that many derailleurs come with and accumulate pivot wear that causes the derailleur to sag into a different geometry. Campy often seemed to be a problem starting in the latter 11 speed era, but any derailleur can be an issue. And you can't make it go away.

If you do have Campy Ekar, back the main shift lever slightly back away from the brake lever using the reach adjustement. This seemed to increase shift accuracy because the levers interfere with each other.

I am running the wheeltop gex derailleur and rotor 13 speed 10/52 cassette. Another issue I see is the deflection the derailleur hanger sees during shifting under load. It does not bend but it does move a lot. A stiffer hanger will make for more snappy shifts under load.

This is the thread where I found the cad. Consider someone was so unhappy with this hanger they took the time to make a cad and machine their own without the hole and with thicker flex points. even Lynskey admitted in a email to me that this hanger was made very soft on purpose. I wish I still had that email. I can bend it with my hands without an adjustment tool lol.

Something else to consider is just how large the derailleur is. It can easily handle a 10/52 and could most likely handle up to a 56tooth cog. This makes it a larger lever than any derailleur considered for this frame when it was designed. I doubt anyone designing the hanger thought I would hang a MTB derailleur with this capacity on it.

lol this forum won’t allow me to post the link to the thread. Wow! It thinks redit with two Ds is a bad word.

https://www.******.com/r/bikewrench/...lleur_hangers/

It sounds like more off than on but OK. I see the occasional bad hanger it happens but to have to adjust a hanger 10 times in a row is ridiculous and you cannot say that you have seen that without some incorrect info. Maybe you are misremembering or really work on some huffy level stuff or something super often or something out of the norm.

If I see a bike come in once that is usually it, I solve the problem and fix the work and rarely need to see them again at least not within a month. Unless the hanger is actually damaged and needs replacement I am less likely to redo work in a short period unless the customer is doing wrong or some young mechanic decided to tackle a job they are unfamiliar with and nobody checked it over.

Regardless of everything you always diagnose the problem first. I cannot believe that is a point of disagreement that is why I question your abilities and time in the shop, it is the basics. When doing a flat fix it is one thing I tell nearly all of my customers figure out why you have the flats and solve that don't just shove a new tube and hope it will work.

Agree with Spoonrobot fine who cares, they are dead wrong, my staff usually comes to me first when there is a technical issue with a bike. There is a reason I don't just go "throw parts at it immediately don't bother with the problem just spend money" I try to figure out what the problem is first like a proper well trained mechanic and give them the best advice I can or do the research to figure out what is needed and not just guess. I have known plenty of lazy mechanics don't get me wrong, "you just need a new part because I don't want to figure out what it wrong" types but I try not to surround myself with them (except maybe here, they come out). It is one thing if I am a team mechanic and all the parts are sponsored and don't cost money and I need to get a fleet of team bikes up and running quickly for the next days race but with a customer I cannot just go and spend their money needlessly without explaining it and have them approve it first. That is at least what a good honest mechanic would do.

The fundamental misunderstanding you seem to be suffering from is that you can't "fix" a weak and easily bent hanger. There is no magic alignment that becomes permanent if the hanger is tweaked just by ordinary shifting.

And if it bends enough to make your shifting not work right, what else can you do but align and re-align it until you come up with a replacement hanger that fixes the problem?

So your fascination with "10 times" is just weird.


And you also seem to not be able to understand that I replace hangers only after determining that the original hanger will not reliably hold position. Why are you having trouble understanding that?

No the 10 times is from the OP, nobody normal would have to adjust a hanger that many times in a short period. That is not normal and I would happily bet money it was user error. If the hanger is damaged you would replace it but you would have replaced it if it was damaged not after 10 adjustments because of human error.

Where are you getting all of these weak hangers from? I have seen some that aren't the greatest but none that can be tweaked easily by hand as you keep mentioning. Those sure I would replace with a Wheels MFG or Pilo but those are few and far between. Most of my hanger replacement is just damage.

If the OP's hanger went off 10 times, then how many times should he have corrected it to make the bike rideable?

How are you failing to run into the occasional weak hanger? Do you run the bike shop on Sesame Street instead of a real one?

Why does someone who admits to not having the experience of dealing with weak hangers insist he knows what is going on? The voice of inexperience?

Once maybe twice but he should have figured out the issue before he had to do it a third or fourth time or brought it to a shop for them to evaluate. I would be willing to bet money it was caused by the OP and not a "weak" hanger. NOBODY has to adjust their hanger that often in such a short period of time if they aren't doing something wrong. Come on now be realistic (or don't your fantasy is kind of funny). I am sorry having talked to other mechanic friends who have been doing it longer than I also haven't seen the need to adjust 10 times.

Because I have dealt with a lot of hangers over time but I don't come across a lot of weak ones I think your statistics are made up or you sell bikes that are so bad that nobody else is selling them or working on them. You seem to replace hangers a lot more often than most people so I would imagine it is something you are doing or are just lazy as we discussed mechanics could be earlier.

You are just repeating yourself. An easily bent hanger keeps bending. Period. There is no fix on that hanger.

Jesus... veganbikes I have a bike with a weak derailleur hanger that comes out of alignment just from normal riding. I've aligned it with a tool, and often align it by hand; I'm sure I've adjusted it 10 times over the years. That's not my point, though, my point is that I can make a video of me bending the derailleur hanger by hand (just by pulling on the derailleur) if it'll get you to realize you don't know as much as you think you know.

Yes my son...I have doubts it is coming out of alignment from normal riding there are other factors but we are talking 10 times in under a year. Once a year during a tune up is not unheard of and I wouldn't bat an eye but doing it over a shorter period is different.

I know I don't know everything but this situation I am not going to give some B.S. about weak hangers and it is normal to adjust it super often and you should just jump to replace it right away regardless of what the issue could be or couldn't be. That is complete crap. I cannot recall a situation where we replaced a hanger that wasn't broken maybe it happened a long time ago but every hanger I can think of was because it was broken not just weak and needed adjustment that is a rare thing in all the shops I have worked at. I can imagine again like I have said before if I was slinging really crappy low end bikes made with cheap parts I might have more problems.

I wish the mods would just delete this thread. This will be the last time I share anything I am doing on my bike.

One person who can’t stand being wrong always ruins my threads. Every ******g time 🖕veganbikes. Its people like you who think anytime you don’t agree or can’t put yourself in there situation the other person is wrong or lying. That’s projection. Thanks for taking what I was sharing about being able to get any part with a cad file 3d printed and making it about what you wanted it to be about. Now **** off please

Sure. Some steel bikes come with replaceable hangers now, too, of course.

In the grand tradition of proliferating standards for bike parts, it won't be surprising if some company comes up with its own "universal" derailleur hanger design to compete with SRAM.

I never flicked you off or said anything mean or nasty about you or attempted to curse at you. You have insulted me simply because I am telling the truth? You should have figured out why you keep having an issue with your hanger it is simple as that.

You have chosen to be hurt by facts I am sorry that you choose to feel that way however don't get nasty with me simply because you aren't happy and cannot have a discussion. You want people to just go "wow you are the best at everything...." you should have a private text thread with only surface level friends and sycophants, however if you want to have a discussion on an online forum this is the place to do it. That is the whole point of this place is discussion not just total agreement, that is boring and silly.

Hah! You're probably right. Maybe they could call it the "Really, REALLY Universal Derailleur Hanger."

You have no facts on your side, you can't explain how any damage would occur from using a Ti hanger and your first post said basically that the OP was making foolish decisions like an inexperienced youth.


Now there are multiple people with examples that show that you are the one lacking experience, but you keep doubling down. You can't post enough words in this thread to suddenly make soft hangers hold position, or make the OP's Ti hanger break his frame. That's how pointless posting your ill considered opinions is.

I already talked about that. The whole point of a hanger is to bend and break to save the derailleur. However in this case the situation was the OP DID NOT figure out their issue before just buying a random hanger and they still seem extremely reluctant to figure out what their actual issue is with the hanger and why they kept having issues with it.

Yes you have made it clear you have a lot of super weak hangers all the time and figuring out the problem before solving it is not something you do. You want to talk about ill considered positions look inward first.

"Hey customer I don't know what the issues with your bike is but that doesn't matter just give me a bunch of money and I will just put parts on it and we will call it done, there is just no point in actually problem solving as it wastes my time and not your money"

I am not going to agree with two people simply because they agree but are wrong. That is not how I operate if someone is saying something foolish I am not going to just agree with them to stroke their ego or whatever they are looking for. When you have a problem you figure out the problem first and then figure out a solution it is pretty simple. You don't just fire blindly in the night and hope to hit the target and not someone random. If you are doing that it is wrong and any good mechanic would tell you that but I have a feeling you would not be able to tell me that because you have yet to say it.

So a hanger made of balsa wood should suffice? What a joke, what are you even talking about? Every time I look in here it gets worse.

Replaceable derailleur hangers need to be able to do multiple things well, not just bend and break, and in some applications they don't have to do that.

He also said he was pretty sure he knew what the problem was but didn't want to discuss it.

ITT:

Nobody but you is talking balsa wood. It gets worse when you two are posting.

You are correct he didn't want to have a discussion on a discussion forum. That is one if not the only correct thing you have posted thus far. I can assure you he didn't figure out the problem, he had to adjust a hanger 10 times in a short period that is user error. If the weak hanger on a Lynskey was a major problem it would have been discussed at length and probably the OP would have found an old thread to zombie about it. It was user error which you guys keep trying to absolve this guy of because of some odd reason. Maybe you three are related or something I don't know or care.

The main takeaway is you figure out the problem first then you come up with solutions. I know it is tough for the moneychanic to understand but a good mechanic would have investigated the problem and solved that problem and sometimes that is a frank discussion with your customer and showing them how to shift, how to maintain and store their bikes and stuff like that. It doesn't have to be a mean conversation (though who knows how you might approach it) but it does have to be honest. If there is a faulty part you would replace that but it is pretty rare most people are replacing a hanger that hasn't been crashed or damaged in shipping or something like that.

You are absolutely wrong:

1. Replaceable hangers save the frame, not the derailleur. Derailleurs almost never break from crashing, and when they do the hanger also bends.

2. The OP did recognize the problem. Prove me wrong.

3. I made it VERY clear that I figured out the problem, as I always figure out mechanical problems. But your belief system rejects that I (or anyone else) could recognize a soft hanger, because YOU DON'T BELIEVE THEY EXIST.


So you just don't believe that the real world exists, so you reject the considerable experience of people around you. Congrats on being so loudly ignorant.

No, he wanted a discussion on the discussion topic; the Ti hanger he created. You wanted to have a discussion about something the OP didn't want or need to discuss. You're like the people that answer a request for a good touring bike by suggesting they go hiking instead.

Failed lines of reasoning aside, I had my bike with the soft, “hand adjustable” derailleur hanger on the stand today to do a little tubeless maintenance since I haven’t ridden it in over a year. After adding some sealant, I took it on the road for a quick spin, only to find the derailleur out of alignment! I could easily see by the cage/cassette alignment what needed done, so I reached down, and with just my hand, pulled the derailleur until things lined up. Voila! Problem solved…again.

of course, it got me thinking about this thread, so I put it back up on the stand to have a closer-than-ever look, and this is what I saw. Obviously the hanger is just soft aluminum, but I wonder if that tiny gap between the CF frame and the notch in the hanger allows the movement to happen so easily, and were the fit snug, that it might resist moving better? In any case, were the hanger stronger, it’d resist bending better.