How to Fix a Poorly Shifting Bicycle

Video Transcript

"Hi I'm Evan from Gregg's Cycles and today we are going to cover how to remedy a mis-shifting derailer or poorly shifting bicycle. The first thing you want to do is give a general check of your gears, just kind of run through them and see where it's skipping if it's skipping at all. It looks like it is not really going around quite all the way there. One of the main reasons that your derailer will mis-shift is due to lack of cable tension. If you can pull your cable down that far the easiest thing to do is just add a little cable tension. The first thing that you can do is use your barrel adjuster which is here on your shifter or many times will be here on your derailer and turning the barrel adjuster clockwise will add cable tension so you can continue to add cable tension until the bicycle shifts appropriately or however you would like it so I'll give that a shot and it looks like that is a little bit too high now. So you can turn the barrel counterclockwise to release some cable tension and that looks good right there. Many times what can also cause a derailer to shift improperly is a bent derailer hanger which we will cover later. Again another thing which would cause your derailer to shift improperly would be too short length of cable housing or also too long. If it is way out and curvy and a lot of cable has to pull through there it can get hung up inside there and not shift properly and also if it is too short then the cable will be kind of trying to pull itself out of the derailer because it is so short. Another quick fix that you can do is also if your bike is little bit older it may or may not have barrel adjusters so if you can't seem to find one of those either on the handle bar or at the derailer, just take your 5 mm Allen and you would loosen your derailer cable anchor screw there and then just pull the cable through taut with your hand and then lock that screw down again and then do the same task, give it a little more or a little less based on how well the bike is shifting. It looks like a little bit too much so give it just a little bit less. Great that looks good and that is how you adjust an improperly shifting derail."