How to Adjust Rear Derailleur on a Bicycle

Video Transcript

" Hi! This is Mike on behalf of expertvillage.com. For more information about bicycle maintenance please visit Prairie Path Cycles in Winfield, Illinois or visit our website at www.prairiepathcycles.com. In this clip I’m going to be showing you how to adjust rear derailleur. Now similar to the brakes in the front derailleur the rear derailleur will have barrel adjusters and a cable adjustment whether you need to loosen the wire or tighten the wire. So when you are shifting and you are going up to the bigger chain rings and back if it is having a hard time going up you are going to want to tighten up the cable. So that is where you will go to your barrel adjusters. Now if you notice for the rear derailleur you don’t have a barrel adjuster up front by the brake lever like you do for your brakes and your front derailleur. For the rear derailleur it is going to be in back. So if it is having trouble going up to the upper chain rings you are going to want to turn left or counterclockwise, which will tighten up your cable, which will pull the derailleur and make it go to the upper sprockets and back easier. Now same thing if you are having trouble going down in gears you are going to want to take off some of the adjustment on the cable so turn the barrel adjuster right or clockwise. Now like the brakes in the front derailleur, if the barrel adjuster is not enough for adjustment and your cable is either way too tight or way too loose you would want to adjust on the rear derailleur and actually pull the wire itself to tighten it up or to loosen it up, whichever way it needs to go and then use the barrel adjuster for the fine tuning and that is how you would adjust your rear derailleur."