How To Tune Bike Gears The Easy Way - Adjust Your Rear Derailleur Like A Pro

has your bike ever sounded like this or this or even worse like this in this video we are going to show you how to get your derailer running smoothly a rear derailleur has two jobs its first job is to tension the chain and its second job is to guide the chain through the gears on the cassette it accomplishes these tasks using spring tension and the movement of the shift cable for the most part rear derailleurs do a great job but over time due to cable stretch trailside impacts or screws backing out they can need some love our goal is that by the end of this video you will be able to completely set up and tune a rear derailleur from start to finish april is going to be the mechanic and i'll guide you through the process even though you may have a different brand or model of derailleur these steps will apply to any standard cable actuated drivetrain the tools needed may change slightly depending on the brand but if you have these key tools in your toolbox you should be able to handle any derailleur setup the first step in this process sounds silly but is often the most overlooked step number one is to make sure the derailleur is tight on the drailer hanger over time this main mounting bolt can come loose as the derailleur pivots and it can cause the rear derailleur to lose alignment anytime i need to work on a drivetrain i start by checking this main bolt step number two is to look for major misalignment a derailleur can only do its job correctly if it is aligned with the gears it needs to be aligned both vertically and torsionally the best way to check for alignment is to shift into the middle of the cassette and to look at the drivetrain from behind the bike you want to make sure the pulley wheels and the derailleur cage are as in line with the current gear as possible there will always be a little wiggle room using the eyeball measurement but that's okay we are mainly looking for things that are severely out of whack when a derailer is out of alignment it usually comes from the derailleur hanger being bent most modern bikes will utilize a removable hanger and these are designed to be softer than the trailer itself they are meant to bend to save the derailleur for major damage these hangers can often easily be bent back using an alignment tool or replaced for around 30 at the end of the day if your hanger is bent you will always struggle to get proper shifting if you are in a pinch you can do a pretty good job of bending them back the old school way to do this place the correct size tool in the drailer mounting bolt then gently move them back into alignment using the tool as leverage but being careful not to bend the derailleur cage by gently bending it eyeballing it and then repeating this process you can get things to work a little better and get you out of a pinch if your bike doesn't have a removable hanger i highly recommend taking into a bike shop for them to help you with this step and to avoid doing major damage to your frame now that things are aligned we are going to make sure the derailleur is doing its other job of tensioning the chain to do this shift down into your smallest gear and turn off the clutch mechanism if you have one if you see your chain drooping at all while it's in the smallest cog this is a sign that your chain is either slightly too long or that your b tension adjustment has backed out and needs to be tightened the b tension adjustment is responsible for rotating your derailleur away from the gears and allowing you to add chain tension in the smaller gears for now we are going to tighten the b-tension until the chain stops drooping and then a little later on we are going to fine-tune it next up is setting the h-limit screw this screw's job is to make a hard stop on your derailleur to make sure your chain doesn't get sucked in between the frame and the bottom cog not only can this cause damage to your bike but it can actually lock your cranks in place and potentially cause a crash the way i like to set the screw is to slowly tighten it until you feel it make contact with the derailleur then start pedaling slowly and keep turning the h-limit screw until you hear the chain start faintly clicking as it tries to go up one gear once you hear the chain clicking slowly back the h limit off until you hear the chain running smoothly in line with the bottom gear this is where you want the screw to be set you want the top pulley wheel on the derailleur to be in line with the bottom cog on the cassette now that we have the b tension and the h limit set the next step is to adjust the shift cable a shifter's job is to pull and release a set amount of cable each time the shifter is clicked this tells the derailleur how far it needs to move to set up your cable tension correctly what i like to do is start at the shifter by turning the barrel adjuster all the way clockwise until it stops and then back it out five to seven clicks this will give you a little wiggle room later on make sure that the cable housing stays seated in the barrel adjuster after doing this then we will go back to the driller and while the derailleur is in the smallest cog you need to locate the shift cable retention bolt while holding the end of the cable you will loosen the cable retention bolt and gently pull any slack out of the system you don't want this to be too tight the derailleur shouldn't actually move when pulling the slack out of the cable when you feel like you have the slack out you will tighten the retention bolt now that everything is tight we are going to dial in the shifting to do this start slowly pedaling the bike in the hardest gear and then click the shifter one time to shift up one gear if the derailleur doesn't fully shift into the gear after just one click we will shift back into the smallest cog turn the barrel adjuster on the shifter two clicks counterclockwise to take some more slack out of the system and then try again we will repeat this process until the derailleur shifts cleanly from the bottom cog to the next cog up after one click of the shifter the goal is to have the chain line up perfectly with each cog after one click of the shifter if you have to turn the barrel adjuster more than four full turns i would recommend starting this process over and trying to remove some more slack with the cable retention bolt once you get this working smoothly as long as your alignment is good the cable tension should now be set correctly for the entire gear range now that the b tension h limit and cable tension are set it is time to set the l limit screw this screw's job is to make a hard stop on the trailer and prevent the chain from getting stuck in between the last gear on the cassette and the spokes to set the l limit we will slowly shift upward to the second to largest cog and stop there once we get here we will stop the rear wheel and then we will very slowly pedal the bike again and shift into the last gear once the chain is on the biggest cog stop pedaling and tap the brake to stop the wheel if your derailleur cage hits the largest cog at all you may need to add a little b tension to gain some clearance from here we will set the l limit screw the easiest way i have found to do this is to gently tighten the element screw until you see or feel it make contact with the derailleur then back it off one quarter to one half turn if this screw is too tight the derailleur will not be able to shift freely onto the biggest cog and if it is too loose you risk the derailleur over shifting and getting the chain stuck behind the cassette and the spokes the goal again is to have the derailleur in line with the last cog to check that the l limit is set properly shift down one gear and then shift back into the largest cog if this shifts properly the l limit is not too tight next you can gently push the derailleur towards the spokes while pedaling slowly the derailleur should make contact with the limit screw preventing the chain from coming off the top the derailleur should also never be able to contact the spokes at all now that you have everything set up run through the gears a few times if it seems like the bike has a hard time shifting down into the harder gears turn the barrel adjuster clockwise two clicks at a time to release cable tension until it shifts smoothly on the way down if it's having a hard time shifting up into the easier gears turn the barrel adjuster two clicks counterclockwise to take up some slack and repeat this until it shifts smoothly upward a well-tuned drivetrain should shift smoothly both directions and should rarely click while pedaling congratulations you just set up a derailer i have used this process for setting up all of my race bikes and while working in a shop for six years so i hope it really helps you cool are you stoked do you learn how to do it yeah it was actually pretty easy yeah and then the other cool thing is like out on a ride if it's shifting hard in the back it's not coming down or going up then you know how to use a barrel gesture now yeah so it's kind of cool now i don't do it cool good job thanks we hope you like this video and if you have any other ideas please put them in the comments below and if you got any value from this video please like and subscribe thank you so much for watching and huge thanks to our patreon crew for supporting us see you guys next time if for some reason you went through all of these steps and the bike is still having issues shifting bring it down to your friendly local bike shop there could be some harder to diagnose issues such as compromised cable routing rust in the system or mismatched components that can cause problems if you got some value out of this it would mean a lot to us if you could please like the video and subscribe and thank you so much for don't watching what are you trying to do [Music] happy

Channel: April - Ride MTB

Views: 1,200,431

Keywords: mountain biking, kyle warner, ridemtb.com, ridemtb, ride mtb, ride mtb podcast, ride mtb coaching, how to mountain bike, april zastrow, Kyleandapril, How to tune bike gears, how to tune a derailleur, mountain bike gears, how to tune bike shifting, the easy way to tune bike gears

Id: 36YFI637EZs

Length: 9min 35sec (575 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 16 2020