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Jumping gears
jameshillery
Posts: 69
in General Chat
Hi , I have been having gear problems on my mountain bike , The rear gears jump when I put any power down. I had the bike serviced hoping that would sort out the problem and it was OK for a couple of weeks , now it has started jump again . Any idea's could it be a stretched chain? or a bent derailer (does not look bent to me).
Cheers
Jimbo
Cheers
Jimbo
0
Comments
Mike
Mike
Look at the cable that is affected by the jumping and trace it all the way down to the rear derailleur, put your derailleur in the highest gear (which should have the least amount of tension on the cable), and pull on the exposed part of the cable. If it is not reasonably tight, like maybe you can fit several fingers underneath the cable, then the cable needs to be tightened. You can do this by (a) adjusting the tightening screws on your gear shifter to see if you can tighten up the gear cables until there's less slack (should still stretch out a little, as it should be at the lowest tension setting when you shifted gears before) or (b) actually tightening the cable itself (if you have the right tools, you'll probably need the right size allen key and a 'third hand' cable tool to keep the tension on the cable).
http://www.cyclingplus.co.uk/workshop.asp
(they have a series of well-illustrated, step-by-step instructionson their site)
http://www.sustrans.org.uk/webfiles/travelsmart/maintenance.pdf
(this is a PDF pamphlet with a couple of good, basic instructions and a few tips)
http://cycling.timeoutdoors.com/maintenance/3MTBSPD01071301E.htm
(a few articles linked together (look at the index list of articles on the left-hand side of the screen and click on the "Click to Read It" link on the right-hand side of the screen if you see an article you want to read or print out - you'll have to register with them for free to read the articles)