gears

dchristensen777 said:

I'm new to cycling and I'm going to upgrade my bike soon.

I have a limited budget and will probably buy a base line hybrid.

On all the bikes I've ridden, I am frustrated with the gears. They get out of adjustment easily. I understand cable stretches and I don't mind it needing adjustment often.

My question is:

Which gears are easier to adjust? I don't want to blow the budget. I also want to be able to adjust it myself. The gears I have are baseline Shimono gears and rapid fire gear changer. This is too touchy for me to adjust .

My guess is that the problem is the cheapy rapid fire gear changer. It does not seem to have enough travel. The problem isw on the front derailer. I can never adjust it so that all 3 work.

I've also riden a bike with gear change handle grips. I think they may be better and more forgiving to cable streatch. I.E. you can shift to gear 3 1/2 if you want 3rd gear.

I think that you are correct that at the low budget end, the grip shift style is more reliable and tolerant of maladjustment than the trigger shifter. At the high price end, the trigger shifters are pretty good.

Also the newer stuff is better than the components sold a few years back. Maintenance is also easier. Try a few bikes at a good local shop and express your concerns and past experience. Hopefully you will get a sales person willing to spend some time to get you matched with the right bike.

Sheldon Brown's article on front and rear derailer adjustment:

http://sheldonbrown.com/derailer-adjustment.html

My experience with a lot of Flat Bar Road Bikes, Hybrids, it is better to select one with the dearer SL-R443 shifters and use 443/440 front and road rear derailleurs.

The MTB stuff is ok for light (stays in the shed) use, EF-50 are better than EF-29 in Rapid Fire, Alivio RD and CO51 FD work ok for me on the cheaper bikes. I will be looking at using 9 speed Deore soon on some of the ladies bikes (Giant Upland/Sedona).

The hardest to adjust is the front derailer. Most of the decent hybrids (Trek, Giant, Specialized) have good components on them. Once you adjust for the initial cable stretch; which can be done easily with the threaded adjusters on the shifter and/or on the frame and rear derailer, you should be good to go for a few years.

Good comments, however, I have found with Triples, Sora, Tiagra, 105, 443, that the FD Low Limit Screw is the problem. It beds into the alloy stop over time and needs a tweek. This shows up in the chain being dropped off when the small inner ring is selected and the rest of the shift process is fine. Many bike shops try to correct this error with the cable djuster. :eek:

I do it this way,
Small Ring, low limit screw first, .5mm clearance on the FD cage when in the largest sprocket,
Middle Ring, low trim, set adjuster for the FD to clear the deraileur cage by .5mm when on the largest sproclet
Middle Ring, high trim, check FD cage does not foul chain when on the smallest sprocket, normally ok,
Big ring, check FD cage does not foul chain in smallest ring, normally ok,
Overshift, pull cable a little here with the fingers to overshift and check High Limit adjustment, the inner face of the FD cage should not touch the chain, if it touches, restrict its travel with the high limit screw.

All should work well. The first two adjustments are normally all that are needed. 🙂