- Bikes are simple things, really.
Beautifully simple, in fact,
but if there is one thing that can dramatically
reduce your enjoyment of them though,
it's dodgy gears.
So not changing gears when you want to,
and changing gears when you don't.
Fortunately though, actually setting up your gears
is remarkably straight forward,
as long as you avoid these mistakes.
(upbeat music)
Now if you're watching this video,
I'm fairly sure you're not guilty of this mistake,
but if you know someone who is,
make sure you let them know.
You do not have to accept rubbish gear shifting
for what it is.
Mistake number one is riding a bike
that frankly, doesn't work.
Doesn't matter how much your bike cost
or what gears you're running,
it can all be made to function,
and I mean that, from Shimano Dura-Ace and Sram Red, to Shimano Sora and below
they can all be made to work accurately.
If your rear gears aren't working properly,
then the vast majority of the time,
you're going to solve your problem with this,
the barrel adjuster.
So turning it will gently move the position of the derailer
underneath the cogs until they are perfectly aligned.
A common mistake, however, is to start
fiddling around with these.
So these are your high and low limit adjustment screws,
but see, they have no function over the control
of your rear derailer, other than to stop the chain
from going over the top of your cassette
and getting jammed in your spokes,
and going over this side of your cassette
and getting jammed in the frame,
but the thing to remember is that once they're set,
you almost never ever need to touch them.
Only really in the event of a crash,
and you bend your derailer or your derailer hanger.
So if you bought your bike from a reputable bike shop,
you can forget about them almost entirely,
and the one above it as well, the B-tension screw,
you can forget about that.
What...
Well, yeah, fair enough, that is a valid question,
but here we have it.
See, your rear derailer is one thing,
and your front derailer is an entirely different beast.
Dare I say it, altogether more temperamental.
You are far more likely to have your chain come off
changing gear up here than back there.
But just as with your rear derailer,
it's your high and low limit screws that are the ones
that generally are stopping the chain from coming off,
and so a big mistake is not checking their position
on your front derailer.
It's a very simple job to do, so let me explain.
With the chain on your easiest gears,
you want to adjust the low limit screw until the inner plate
of the front derailer is about a millimetre away
from that outside of your chain.
Then to set your high limit screw,
put your chain in the biggest gear that you've got,
then you need to make sure that that outer blade
of the derailer is again about a millimetre away
from your chain.
That should do it.
Not listening, and I don't just mean to this video,
I mean to your gears, because see,
gears that aren't working are annoying,
firstly because more often than not,
you'll be in the wrong gear,
but secondly, because gears that don't work are noisy.
To try and ignore those noisy gears is a mistake,
because actually if you listen to them,
they're telling you why they're not working.
So, if the noise is coming from your front derailer
rubbing against your chain,
then you more often than not just need to adjust
the position of it.
You can do that firstly by increasing or decreasing
the cable tension using a barrel adjuster
that you could well have up here.
So to move it outboard, you simply increase the cable tension
and to move it inboard, you decrease it.
And then as we've just heard your high and low level screws.
If the chain is in the big ring and it's rubbing
on the outer most plate,
then you will need to back off the high limit screw,
and if the chain is rubbing where it's on the little ring,
on the innermost plate, then you need to
back off the low limit screw.
Fortunately your rear derailer is,
in this case, much simpler.
If that's making a noise, then you simply need to eyeball
the position of the derailer under the cassette,
and then adjust it using that barrel adjuster.
So if you turn it counter clockwise,
you'll be moving the derailer inward,
and if you turn it clockwise,
you'll be moving it outward.
There are times when no matter how much you fiddle around
with the index of your gears,
you are just not going to get them to work properly,
and that is because silky smooth gears
rely on silky smooth cables.
Basically, as soon as your cables start getting sticky,
either through water and grass or grit,
you will struggle to downshift,
and that is because the little spring in the derailer
just aren't strong enough to overcome
the friction in the cables,
therefore you click the shifter and nothing really happens.
In fact, just enough happens for you to start thinking
that your gears aren't indexed correctly.
So there are times where you just need to admit defeat
and pop down to your local bike shop
and buy a new set of cables,
and not doing so is a common mistake.
When you do finally come to replace your cables,
it's a simple enough job.
However, as you might have guessed,
there are common mistakes that you need to avoid.
For example, you fitted the new cable,
you cinched the cable tight in the cable clamp bolt,
and then you forget to prestretch the cables.
Now that might be because actually,
it's not stretching at all.
What you're after is to press all housing
of the cable barrels in to the cable stops.
If you don't do that and you just index your gears,
when you do come to ride your bike,
you start changing gears out in the wild,
the compression will happen out there,
and then your indexing will go completely out of whack.
So you need to remember to pre-stretch.
Then, the other other thing is actually
using the wrong tools to cut your new cables
in the first place.
So, you need a proper set of cable cutters,
because that will make a nice, clean cut.
If you try to use something else,
like a set of pliers, all you can do is
end up hacking away for ages
and making a real mess of your cables.
Right then, don't ignore your rubbish shifting
on your road bike.
That is the first point.
You need to listen to what the bike is telling you.
You want to ignore your limit screws basically
on your rear derailer, but then paradoxically,
don't neglect them on your front derailer,
and then also, bear in mind that there are times
that no matter how much you do,
you are just going to have to go back to square one
and put new cables on your bike.
Now, if you don't know how to index your gears
and set them up in the correct way, only these mistakes,
then we've got two great videos:
one for your rear derailer, and one for your front derailer.
But before I throw you to one of those,
I'm just going to ask you
to make sure you subscribe to GCN.
To do that is pretty simple, just click on the globe,
and it is, let me remind you, completely free.
Then those two videos, right.
How to index your rear derailer is down here,
and how to index your front derailer is just down there.