Have I got the wrong front shifter on my bike?

[Kbrook]

My bike is a Ribble compact. When out riding the other day I had real trouble shifting the front derailleur to its small cog, the thumb shifter was unbelievably stiff and I had to stop once to apply enough pressure to move it. So yesterday I had a play with it all, I released tension on the cable and now the front gears shift nicely both ways. The thing that is puzzling me is the gear indicator on the shifter, prior to releasing the tension it would not move all the way to the right, now it will not move all the way to the left. So what I have is gears that work fine but an indicator that looks like it has another position. In other words the little red bar is half way on the gear indicator window.

I am far from an expert and perhaps I should have taken it to a LBS, but I do seem to have gears working fine now. So my thoughts are that I have a triple shifter operating a compact double, and that the range of travel is being controlled by the limit screws.

It's really puzzling me, the bike is nearly new, I have rung Ribble who said that it should have double shifter on and wouldn't have a triple. Is there any way to check? Do any bike manufacturers use triple shifters on compact doubles?

 

[accountantpete]

You probably have a triple.

What happened was that when re-tightening the cable you need to co-ordinate the lever position with the front mech position. Ideally you undo the cable and then click the thumb shifter all the way down. This sets the shifter to small ring position.

All you need to do then is to position the front mech over the small ring and tighten up on the cable.

Before tightening up though - click through the shifts and see if the indicator moves all the way across.