How to Check a Bike's Hanger Alignment

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Evan from Gregg's Green Lake Cycles. And I'm going to show you how align your derailer hanger. First thing you want to do is check your shifting. See if it's off. If the derailer hanger needs to be adjusted. Just like this one probably does. One of the main causes of a bank derailer is a fall. So if you've fallen recently, or if your, your bike's been hit, or if you have it leaning up in a garage, or just bumming around in your basement. Chances are good that your derailer hanger's probably been bent. The first thing you want to go, go ahead and do is release the cable tension. Then let it shift all the way down into that smallest cog there. And you want to actually go ahead and check the derailer's alignment. And see if it's actually holding true. If the, if it's laterally in line with the rest of the cogs on the bike. If it's kind of canted to one way or the other, then you know that it's bent and it's something that needs to be fixed. If you're a home mechanic doing this at home without any real professional tools, the easiest way to fix this is you can take a five millimeter allen, or six most commonly five, and kind of put it, put it in to where the derailer mounts to the hanger. Make sure that the, the derailer's nice and tight in there and that you're not going to strip out any threads. Just kind of hang on to the bike and then just kind of pull and push one direction or the other to, to remedy whatever way it's bent. Then just kind of do it till it looks good. Hook everything back up to see if it shifts appropriately. Then if it doesn't or if it's still bent, just kind of go back and make minor adjustments. A lot of times it's something that you can't do at home, and something that actually needs to be done at a bicycle shop. Sometimes once a hanger is bent, it could be bent way up here at the top, where it's unfortunately irreversible damage, and in which case the hanger would just need to be replaced. So you can only recorrect the hanger alignment to a certain point before you actually just need to go ahead and replace the hanger. So those are some steps and some options and some alternatives to checking your hanger alignment."