How to adjust a front derailleur!

okay this is Mongoose Jake here I'm gonna do it a quick video that was requested by back sacks one ago on my tech TRO hydraulic brake review he requested for me to do a front derailleur adjustment video at the time I was waiting for this ceramic 7 front derailleur to show up and so I had delayed it for a few weeks until I got the front derailleur and then afterwards I had gotten a ax we were told that where I had a major congestion in my vocal cords and I actually had lost my voice for about a week and a half but those are just excuses and finally found the time to go ahead and get this video done wanted to show you my technique now there are other videos out there on youtube and elsewhere on the internet and other other people have good advice on this as well but I just want to show you my take on the front derailleur and how to quickly get it adjusted at least close on your stand now this is again one thing that I do believe is more of a trial and error out on the trail while riding because you do have to remember and take into account on the stand the bike is not under your pressure of your weight or riding conditions and what seems to work just right here on the stand may not be perfect out on the trail so this will get you close but remember to always play with it out there on the trail to get it just right now a few things you're gonna need are these two I always use I have a multi-tool I have a my trusty Stanley flathead screwdriver and just in their generic pair of pliers these will come in handy when adjusting your derailleur now I already have it clamped at the appropriate height but if you were doing this to start off there's actually for this video I have loosened up the cable to show you this because I've actually already been riding this bike with this but to start off with you have to route your chain through by means of if you have a factory bike you will likely have it riveted on so you'll have to punch out a couple rivets and then what I like to do is since this has already been upgraded I already have my SRAM power link here which is a quick disconnect and right here you can see it hopefully it comes through good on the video you can see it to where you just simply squeeze this chain together and that link can come apart and slide out but make sure you get your chain through here and keep your clamp loosely loosely mounted here for your front derailleur and what I do is I've had this Stanley screwdriver from over a decade now and the simplest way for me to get my height adjustment specs always listed at two to three millimeters but I just take the tip of this screwdriver place it over the tooth here and as long as it clears at all points without too much of a gap otherwise I mean it almost touches in a couple of spots because right here is what's important right here at these points you don't want it too far because then that can lead to some drop chains but you don't want too close because that can also lead to the cage rubbing on Slade possibly slightly bent sprocket here which my sprockets in good shape but as you can see if I push it out it is clear at all areas now to move on to actually adjusting it have your cable already routed through with anchor bolt loose pull it out and we're gonna go to the middle ring but first I'll take the time to show you here at the back I have my chain sitting on what is here on my nine speed cassette on the fifth now you want to set it to the middle so that you don't deal with a whole lot of cross-chaining which is the chain going from say the biggest cog in the rear to the biggest cog in the front or small to small that adds in friction and can really degrade your shifting and when you're trying to adjust your shifting or set up a derailleur you really don't want to have to be combating that so what we're gonna do is this I'm gonna go ahead and I will turn my hand and pull this out my hand to the middle ring a little bit of a effort there because I am doing it by hand and we don't want to get my hands in there and caught now readjust that on my stand now take this time to show you these two screws a lot of people have the misconception that they're for adjusting they are not they are just simply limit screws to prevent the hi here marked with an H prevents your chain from being pushed by the derailleur past the big ring the low does the opposite it prevents your chain from being pulled too far into the frame and de railing it actually off the low ring and into the frame those are set to limit it at the maximum or the minimum what you need to do is realize that your front derailleur is going to be totally adjusted by your barrel shifter here at your front shifter the barrel adjuster at the shifter I should say and you set this to the middle of his range screw it all the way in and all the way out find the middle get near the middle before you start this back down here what you're gonna do and this will actually be pretty quick once it's on the middle let's rocket go ahead pull your cage out and again my handies stanley screwdriver i like to place it in and i will actually anchor that in against generally either the B be somewhere solid and in this case I have got it right on the BB where I like it and I hold that in place against my tire now it's actually anchoring that right set it over the chain pretty much and I'll take my allen wrench on my multi-tool place it into the anchor bolt pull the chain pull this cable snug now I'm not gonna go crazy on it because I don't want to damage the cable especially if you're using a coated cable in this case I'm not so for me it's okay but I will be tightening up and this kiss now I'll remove everything go ahead pull this out and now we'll do some test shifting to see just how close it is and as you can see you know just in a bit there we go just pulled it off go back up good quick shift there good shift to the top let's make sure it can't go past I've already set my adjustment screw by a limit screw here now I adjust it out a little bit because I want a good strong shift if you notice that on the stand here it drops off be sure to go ahead and turn that in a little bit and then retry that we're in go back down good positive downshift pretty good on the on the downshift there and what you would do just keep trying it go back and forth go up and up and there we go now of course this is just to get it in the ballpark try it out on the trail make sure you can go in and out quickly and efficiently and then once you do play with your adjustment screws if you feel any drops happen whatsoever then be sure to give an extra turn on those to prevent those droughts from happening again because you don't want to damage your frame and you don't want to lose a chain off the outside but again this is just my quick little set-up guide to adjusting your front derailleur this is not gonna be real in-depth but this should get you close and then just play with it on the trail as you ride to get it to be as close to perfection as you can and again want to give a little shout out to the back Sachs one who's been patiently waiting for this video and if you have any questions comments want me to get a little more in-depth leave them in the section below and this is Mongoose Jake signing off and again stay tuned for more how-tos here in the near future you

Channel: MongooseJake

Views: 889,298

Keywords: front derailleur, derailleur, Sram, X7, how to, adjust, Mongoose, mountain bike, bike, bikes, cycling, bicycles

Id: Xuw9yCLwslQ

Length: 9min 7sec (547 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 30 2012