Front Derailleur Troubles

Max Phillips said:

I've searched around but can't find my specific problem, so if anyone has any ideas please pass them on. For some reason my front derailleur's shifting is incredibly...delayed? I suppose that's the best word to describe it. Downshifting is as always fine, but when shifting from the small ring to the big ring it won't shift the chain until i slow down my pedaling (computer isn't mounted to bike right now, but i would guess it to be something like slowing from a cadence of 90 to about 65 or so). any ideas as to what may cause this?

Check your derailleur cable's routing, particularly beneath the bottom bracket if it is a ROAD bike with a bottom pull front derailleur.

Consider lubing your cable's housing OR changing the housing from (I'm presuming you have Shimano STI shifters) from that stiff & skinny housing that Shimano provides with some BRAKE housing ... it's what I have generally used on the few bikes I had set up with STI shifters.

When in doubt, change BOTH the housing & cable.

FYI. With Shimano's STI shifters, it is of paramount importance that the front derailleur cage match the chain EVEN WITH A DOUBLE for optimal shifting -- if you have a 9-speed front derailleur, you want to use a 9-speed chain ... 8-speed front derailleur, an 8-speed chain, etc.

BTW. The Shimano shifter has a built-in DWELL feature (front & rear) ... it is a legacy from the original 8-speed design and is slightly slower than it probably needs to be ... AND, that is part of the reason Shimano's better chainrings (e.g., DA or Ultegra) have those nice pins-and-ramps (i.e., to facilitate shifting) ... if you have 105 chainrings, pony up for an Ultegra outer/large chainring.

If the seemingly slow shifting persists & really bothers you, then get some Campagnolo shifters!

Sorry I didn't mention this stuff earlier...

The cables and housings are all brand new. It is a Shimano 105 front derailleur with ultegra chain and race lite crankset (all 10 speed with about 2400 miles...chain has approx 400 miles on it).

SRAM is in the near future, but i've gotta count my pennies first.

Max Phillips said:

Sorry I didn't mention this stuff earlier...

The cables and housings are all brand new. It is a Shimano 105 front derailleur with ultegra chain and race lite crankset (all 10 speed with about 2400 miles...chain has approx 400 miles on it).

SRAM is in the near future, but i've gotta count my pennies first.

Whether-or-not the recalcitrant shifting is something new, give serious consideration to buying a NEW, 10-speed Ultegra 52t-or-53t chainring for your bike ... Shimano really does have the BEST chainrings (presuming one chooses/uses their DA or Ultegra rings, that is) because they have been engineered for both stiffness & (more importantly) to compensate for the incorporated DWELL that their shifters have!

BTW/FWIW. A long, long time ago, when I made the transition from downtube shifters to STI 6500 shifters, I found that the 6503 front derailleurs that I had were almost impossible to upshift! I contacted Shimano (in Irvine, CA) ... sent the two front derailleurs to them & received new replacements in just days. Same situation for OTHER components. There is a small chance that your front derailleur's spring is just too "strong" to allow the shifter to quickly move it from one ring to another, but the chainring replacement is probably the solution to your apparent problem if all other possibilities are not the cause.

Now, as far as SRAM goes, I've said it before & I'll say it again -- SRAM has the WORST Customer Service in North America. Non-responsive is the best way to describe it/them.

Further, while there is certainly a dedicated cadre of SRAM aficionados ["hey, emperor, nice clothes!"] OR those who had the need to be the first-on-the-block to try the new double-tap technology (very elegant design, but ... was it worth a serious premium over Shimano or Campagnolo?) OR those who simply hate the idea-of-Shimano (oh yeah, they're rebels), I can't help but believe that SOME of them are kicking themselves for not waiting ...

Already, the high-zoot (at $500+ retail) SRAM FORCE shifters have been superseded by the SRAM RED shifters whose shifting action is faster-acting to remedy some user feedback.

How great is it for those early adopters to have paid a premium to be a guinea pig?!?

If SRAM doesn't make some sweet deals with the major bike brands to displace Shimano's reliable & well priced components beyond the token incursion, then SRAM's ROAD groups will probably be a footnote in history in less than a decade as the novelty of having something different fades for those buying mid-range, off-the-shelf bikes ... and then, any hopes of customer service from SRAM for their double-tap components will probably be a universal aggravation, if not sooner.

alfeng said:

Check your derailleur cable's routing, particularly beneath the bottom bracket if it is a ROAD bike with a bottom pull front derailleur.

Consider lubing your cable's housing OR changing the housing from (I'm presuming you have Shimano STI shifters) from that stiff & skinny housing that Shimano provides with some BRAKE housing ... it's what I have generally used on the few bikes I had set up with STI shifters.

When in doubt, change BOTH the housing & cable.

FYI. With Shimano's STI shifters, it is of paramount importance that the front derailleur cage match the chain EVEN WITH A DOUBLE for optimal shifting -- if you have a 9-speed front derailleur, you want to use a 9-speed chain ... 8-speed front derailleur, an 8-speed chain, etc.

BTW. The Shimano shifter has a built-in DWELL feature (front & rear) ... it is a legacy from the original 8-speed design and is slightly slower than it probably needs to be ... AND, that is part of the reason Shimano's better chainrings (e.g., DA or Ultegra) have those nice pins-and-ramps (i.e., to facilitate shifting) ... if you have 105 chainrings, pony up for an Ultegra outer/large chainring.

If the seemingly slow shifting persists & really bothers you, then get some Campagnolo shifters!

Alfeng, I respect your level of knowledge concerning bicycling, but I was under the impression that brake housings were unacceptable for use as a shifter housing because they have a certain amount compressability that makes for sloppy STI Shifting. I don't recall specifically where I saw it so I may have just imagined it.

Also, my Shimano 105 chainrings have the shift assist pin and ramps on them. I have a double from 1999 and a triple from 2003 and they both have these. The 1999 is on a bike that I keep for sentimental reasons and only ride a couple times a year. The triple is on my shelf after upgrading a bike. It is in almost brand new condition and will probably go on my next project build.

kdelong said:

Alfeng, I respect your level of knowledge concerning bicycling, but I was under the impression that brake housings were unacceptable for use as a shifter housing because they have a certain amount compressability that makes for sloppy STI Shifting. I don't recall specifically where I saw it so I may have just imagined it.

Also, my Shimano 105 chainrings have the shift assist pin and ramps on them. I have a double from 1999 and a triple from 2003 and they both have these. The 1999 is on a bike that I keep for sentimental reasons and only ride a couple times a year. The triple is on my shelf after upgrading a bike. It is in almost brand new condition and will probably go on my next project build.

You know, I've seen that same comment (BICYLING Magazine, I think), and I don't agree with it. I've seen some brake housing that might be dodgy ... but, the linear stranded STI derailleur cable housing didn't seem to be worth the inconvenience (to me, at least) of trimming (having tried it, of course). Anyway, I just didn't have a problem using brake cable housing with its larger inner diameter (ergo, less chance of the smaller diameter shift cable bindiing within ... at least in my mind) ... and, I don't know where you would get compression of a brake cable housing substituted for an STI shift cable housing based on the path the cable & housing take after it exits the shifter & connects to the frame's cable stop OR at the connection between the cable stop on the rear stay & the rear derailleur. A brake housing used in place of Shimano's derailleur housing will sag a little as it exits (from gravity), but that was purely a cosmetic issue as far as I was concerned.

As far as 105 chainrings, I was only speaking from my limited exposure; and, the ramping & pinning seemed minimal when compared to what I know the Ultegra & DA rings are like. YOUR experience & observation may be much more valid as a generalization -- that is, the few 105 rings I've seen were stamped (nothing wrong with that as it serves the dual purpose of creating the ramp & stiffening the ring) & not "nickel" (?) plated (which results in a longer useful life of the chainring).

As an aside, with the Octalink generation of cranks, the 105 lacked the self-extracting bolts (which could be retrofitted, of course, but at a cost about equal to the price difference between a 105 & Ultegra Octalink crankset), so the Ultegra Octalink cranks were definitely quite a bargain, relatively speaking,