Newb maintainance question, chain tension

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BenScoobert

Senior Member
Location
Halifax
Whilst impatiently waiting for my bike to be delivered I decided to service my Mum's bike, as she wants to ride more often.

Its a claud butler ladies road bike, I noticed the chain seemed quite loose on the deraileur, I see there is a spring there, is the tension adjustable on the spring or does that depend on how good quality her bike is?
 

Hont

Guru
Location
Bromsgrove
The spring itself determines the tension (along with the chain length). Is the spring well lubricated or does it look a bit dried out? Worth lubricating if it's been a while since it had some attention.
 

swee'pea99

Legendary Member
If it hasn't been serviced for awhile, you could have some stickiness in the cable, which is preventing the spring from doing its job properly. I'd suggest dribbling some oil through the cable housing (while working the cable back & forth to help it thru') - also check & oil  particularly where it goes round the bottom bracket - a popular place for crap to get in, seizing things up.
 
If it is all working as it should, then the chain will probably still feel fairly slack to the touch (when in most of the gears) and will flap about a little when you bounce down onto the road from a kerb, for instance. If you are not that familiar with the actions of a rear mechanism, then my advice would not be to fiddle around too much with it. Lubricating any bits that move and all the joints is never going to do any harm, so I'd give that a try.
 
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