D
Dan Musicant
Guest
The bike is a Miyata One-Twelve, a decent 12 speed around 10 years old. I got it very slightly used
almost 5 years ago and it didn't have problems for a long time and I used it pretty lightly. Lately
(about the last 4 months) I'm using it heavily, taking 12 mile rides daily and climbing 1000 feet.
During one of these climbs a tooth broke on the freewheel and I wound up switching out the back
wheel for another used one I had which was in very good shape and also had a 6 sprocket freewheel,
although the largest sprocket has 30 teeth whereas the original had 28 teeth. I bought a new chain,
cleaned everything up and with a small turn of the high end screw adjustment on the rear Shimano
"Light Action" derailleur, the indexed shifting continued to work perfectly.
However, after around 4 to 6 weeks, the indexed shifting no longer worked OK. I started getting
kerchunks that were inexplicable. At first I thought that the chain was moving from one sprocket to
another, but I since realized that while that may be true at times, sometimes this happens when the
chain was already on the smallest rear sprocket. Of course, this is very disconcerting, especially
when you are climbing. My biggest fear when that happens is that I will break another freewheel
tooth and I know now that it's hard to find 6 sprocket freewheels.
Now I find that changing the shifter often doesn't accomplish what I expect, and today I spent a
couple of hours trying to adjust things. I failed. I have John Forester's "Effective Cycling", and
he has detailed instructions on how to make the adjustments, but it didn't work out for
me. Maybe I should try it again. Is it all that hard to make your own adjustments? Am I banging my
head against a wall - i.e. is there something wrong that I don't realize?
I realize that I can use the friction setting on the Shimano indexed shifters, but I've come to
really love indexed shifting, especially when riding in the hills. Thanks for any help.
Dan
almost 5 years ago and it didn't have problems for a long time and I used it pretty lightly. Lately
(about the last 4 months) I'm using it heavily, taking 12 mile rides daily and climbing 1000 feet.
During one of these climbs a tooth broke on the freewheel and I wound up switching out the back
wheel for another used one I had which was in very good shape and also had a 6 sprocket freewheel,
although the largest sprocket has 30 teeth whereas the original had 28 teeth. I bought a new chain,
cleaned everything up and with a small turn of the high end screw adjustment on the rear Shimano
"Light Action" derailleur, the indexed shifting continued to work perfectly.
However, after around 4 to 6 weeks, the indexed shifting no longer worked OK. I started getting
kerchunks that were inexplicable. At first I thought that the chain was moving from one sprocket to
another, but I since realized that while that may be true at times, sometimes this happens when the
chain was already on the smallest rear sprocket. Of course, this is very disconcerting, especially
when you are climbing. My biggest fear when that happens is that I will break another freewheel
tooth and I know now that it's hard to find 6 sprocket freewheels.
Now I find that changing the shifter often doesn't accomplish what I expect, and today I spent a
couple of hours trying to adjust things. I failed. I have John Forester's "Effective Cycling", and
he has detailed instructions on how to make the adjustments, but it didn't work out for
me. Maybe I should try it again. Is it all that hard to make your own adjustments? Am I banging my
head against a wall - i.e. is there something wrong that I don't realize?
I realize that I can use the friction setting on the Shimano indexed shifters, but I've come to
really love indexed shifting, especially when riding in the hills. Thanks for any help.
Dan
an Musicant <
