How to Fix Rear Bicycle Dérailleur Gears

Video Transcript

Poor shifting on the rear dérailleur usually is the result of improper cable tension. So you always check this by starting from the highest gear, the smallest one on the back, seven, eight, nine, or ten depending on your bike. This bike is a seven speed bike, chain is down on the smallest cog and I am checking this cable here and you can see there is quiet a bit of slack in it. It is shifted down to seven on the lever, the dérailleur itself is down to the seventh cog, this is where you check the cable tension. And it is fairly loose. Most bikes provide you with two places to manually adjust the cable tension without the use of tools. They are called adjusting valves and to tighten the cable you unscrew the adjusting barrel. Located at the dérailleur you can unscrew this here and backing it out you start to see a little bit more of this piece in here. Check the cable tension and see that it does not pull away anywhere near as it did before. So I am going to try shifting it to see if it works well. I'm getting clean shifts but it double shifted at the last so perhaps the cable is a little too tight. I shifted it back down to the smallest cog, loosen the cable by a turn or so and we are going to try it again. I'm getting good shifts up and down.

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