Have you ever had perfectly-adjusted derailleurs?

[Shut Up Legs]

I mean perfect: so good that each gear change is virtually silent, even the notoriously-noisy front large to middle/small chain ring switch.

I have that at the moment, and I'm still amazed I managed it. The gear changing is so smooth, and I'm oscillating between being excited at how good it is and wondering how long it will last .

 

[screenman]

Only since I started checking hanger alignment as well as all the other tweaks.

 

[Bodhbh]

It feels like it sometimes, but I bet it's just cos I'm used to whatever niggles are in the system.

 

[noodle]

it actually exists????

or are you wearing headphones with motorhead and the volume at 11

 

[slowmotion]

Never. I can get the rear mech to function pretty well but the front one is always crap.

EDIT: If anybody has a bomb-proof YouTube tutorial of how to adjust a front triple mech, I would be really grateful if they posted it. The Shimano Techdocs literature is not very clear at all. Thanks.

 

[djb1971]

Yes, on all of my bikes.

It's one those things that niggles and eats away at me slowly if the shifting isn't slick. I'll stick a bike in a stand a tinker until it's just so.

 

[TheJDog]

As above, adjusting rears is a doddle, but the front is a major pain. I have the yaw FD from SRAM, but with a trimming lever. I'm not even sure if it's possible to make it silent in some gears - like 1 or 2 and 8 or 9, in the big or small ring I get some rubbing. The changes are great on the front, but there is noise when pushing.

 

[Roadrider48]

Yes, on all of my bikes.

It's one those things that niggles and eats away at me slowly if the shifting isn't slick. I'll stick a bike in a stand a tinker until it's just so.

Me too. It HAS to be just right.

 

[slowmotion]

[QUOTE 3283538, member: 259"]It's one of those things that makes investing in a stand seem so right. It's downright impossible otherwise.[/QUOTE]
Stands help but they don't replicate what actually happens when you put the drive chain under load. Well, that's my excuse....

 

[noodle]

Stands help but they don't replicate what actually happens when you put the drive chain under load. Well, that's my excuse....

mine was always its bouncing off roots/rocks etc is why its never quite right

 

[Shut Up Legs]

Stands help but they don't replicate what actually happens when you put the drive chain under load. Well, that's my excuse....

A perfectly-valid one! A derailleur that appears perfectly-tuned on the workstand may not behave perfectly out in the real world, or at least that's my experience (numerous times).

 

[screenman]

Rear mech alignment is often the biggest problem, done one this week for a fellow cyclist, 14mm out the gears worked fine on the stand, not on the road.

 

[compo]

My derailleurs are generally pretty good, front and back because I have a hatred of anything on the bike making a noise (except me going uphill).

Of course all this indexing and adjusting malarkey wasn't necessary in the good old days of friction shifters. Once you got used to them it is suprising how quickly and neatly you could shift gears.

 

[John the Monkey]

Yep. Tiagra on my SCR2 - since I put a chainset on that matches the rest of the group, it's been flawless.

The bits box cobbler that's my tourer, we shall not speak of in this thread

 

[Shut Up Legs]

My derailleurs are generally pretty good, front and back because I have a hatred of anything on the bike making a noise (except me going uphill).

Of course all this indexing and adjusting malarkey wasn't necessary in the good old days of friction shifters. Once you got used to them it is suprising how quickly and neatly you could shift gears.

Yes, I had a bike with down-tube mounted friction shifters once, an <unspecified number> of decades ago.