Adjusting derailleurs

On 10 May 2004 19:13:22 -0700, [email hidden] (FFBSensei) wrote:

<Hello all,
<
<I have two bikes, a 1985 Specialized Allez (Suntour Superbe Pro -
<friction, not index shifting) and a 1995 Specialized Stumpjumpber
<(Deore LX). I'm just getting back into biking after many many
<years...and I find that my 12 -speed Allez is now a 6 speed, and my
<21-speed Stumpjumper is now a 2 speed because the derailleurs need
<adjusting. I've typically taken the bikes in for a tune-up, but I
<just got laid off and don't want to spend the $150 to tune up both
<bikes.
<
<Can someone explain to me what I need to do to adjust the front and
<rear derailleurs? Thanks in advance for any assitance you can
<provide!

This ought to do the trick:
http://sheldonbrown.com/derailer-adjustment.html

William Holiday said:

On 10 May 2004 19:13:22 -0700, [email hidden] (FFBSensei) wrote:
<Hello all, < <I have two bikes, a 1985 Specialized Allez (Suntour
Superbe Pro - <friction, not index shifting) and a 1995 Specialized
Stumpjumpber <(Deore LX). I'm just getting back into biking after many
many <years...and I find that my 12 -speed Allez is now a 6 speed, and
my <21-speed Stumpjumper is now a 2 speed because the derailleurs need
<adjusting. I've typically taken the bikes in for a tune-up, but I <just
got laid off and don't want to spend the $150 to tune up both <bikes. <
<Can someone explain to me what I need to do to adjust the front and
<rear derailleurs? Thanks in advance for any assitance you can <provide!
This ought to do the trick: http://sheldonbrown.com/derailer-http://sheldonbrown.com/derailer-
adjustment.html

or put it on one line so it can be clicked as a link: http://sheldonbrown.com/derailer-
adjustment.html

--

daveornee said:

William Holiday said:

On 10 May 2004 19:13:22 -0700, [email hidden] (FFBSensei) wrote:
<Hello all, < <I have two bikes, a 1985 Specialized Allez (Suntour
Superbe Pro - <friction, not index shifting) and a 1995 Specialized
Stumpjumpber <(Deore LX). I'm just getting back into biking after many
many <years...and I find that my 12 -speed Allez is now a 6 speed, and
my <21-speed Stumpjumper is now a 2 speed because the derailleurs need
<adjusting. I've typically taken the bikes in for a tune-up, but I <just
got laid off and don't want to spend the $150 to tune up both <bikes. <
<Can someone explain to me what I need to do to adjust the front and
<rear derailleurs? Thanks in advance for any assitance you can <provide!
This ought to do the trick: http://sheldonbrown.com/derailer-http://sheldonbrown.com/derailer-
adjustment.html

or put it on one line so it can be clicked as a link: http://sheldonbrown.com/derailer-
adjustment.html

Dear Dave,

Sorry, but your effort was no better on some newsreaders, wrapping
and breaking off the tail end just like William's effort.

http://sheldonbrown.com/derailer-adjustment.html

Now I'll see if mine is any better.

Carl Fogel

<SNIP>

Dear Dave,

Sorry, but your effort was no better on some newsreaders, wrapping and
breaking off the tail end just like William's effort.

http://sheldonbrown.com/derailer-
adjustment.htmlhttp://sheldonbrown.com/derailer-adjustment.html

Now I'll see if mine is any better.

Carl Fogel

Carl, Sorry I don't know about the formats for all the readers, but I
tried to improve; and my posting worked on my reader. Yours did too.
What should I have done to prevent the wrap on those other readers? I
seee some buttons on my reader, that I usually ignore: one for http://
.... Maybe I should use it and not be "ignorant".

By the way, I am still waiting delivery of my special vise.http://sheldonbrown.com/derailer-
adjustment.htmlhttp://sheldonbrown.com/derailer-adjustment.html

--

daveornee said:

<SNIP>

Dear Dave,

Sorry, but your effort was no better on some newsreaders, wrapping and
breaking off the tail end just like William's effort.

http://sheldonbrown.com/derailer-
adjustment.htmlhttp://sheldonbrown.com/derailer-adjustment.html

Now I'll see if mine is any better.

Carl Fogel

Carl, Sorry I don't know about the formats for all the readers, but I
tried to improve; and my posting worked on my reader. Yours did too.
What should I have done to prevent the wrap on those other readers? I
seee some buttons on my reader, that I usually ignore: one for http://
... Maybe I should use it and not be "ignorant".

Most newer software will spot "http://" and automatically turn it into a
link, if you just type the URL with no special formatting.

Not sure if it works in News, especially if it gets wrapped and
interrupted by ">"s, but if you enclose a URL between angle brackets, it
won't be wrecked by line breaks in email thus:

<http://www.sheldonbrown.com/derailer-adjustment.html>

It's also helpful to put URLs at the beginning of a line, this reduces
the chance of them getting broken by word wrap.

I've been creating forwarding links to simplify popular URLs on my site,
so for most links you will no longer need the ".html" part.

Also, on my site, and on many other sites, the "www." part of the URL is
not needed, though it may appear as a result of following old links.

Thus, you can get that page from:

<http://sheldonbrown.com/derailer-adjustment>

My latest bike pages are:

http://sheldonbrown.org/picchio
http://sheldonbrown.org/thorn
http://sheldonbrown.org/quickbeam

Sheldon "URLy To Bed, URLy To Rise..." Brown
+----------------------------------------+
| Friends don't send friends vcf files. |
+----------------------------------------+
Harris Cyclery, West Newton, Massachusetts
Phone 617-244-9772 FAX 617-244-1041
http://harriscyclery.com
Hard-to-find parts shipped Worldwide
http://captainbike.com http://sheldonbrown.com

Hi Sensei, The Link that William has provided you is a great resource
for bikes. I recommend you save it to a favs folder, and study up/read
the articles. Maintainence on a bike is not all that difficult, and
you can do it, and save yourself some cash.

Having the right tools will be of help, and most stuff on these bikes
will typically be metric, so if you have some metric Wrenches, and
Allen Wrenches, decent Phillips screwdriver, this will be a plus. Very
possible that all that is needed is a Phillips screwdriver, and a good
light lubricating oil available just about anywhere.

Provided you don't have any damaged, or worn out-rusted out derailleur
Cables, and housings, it will be a simple matter of lubrication, and
adjustment.

It help if you can some how support the bike such as would be in a
bike shop, with the bike on a Mechanic's stand. If you can't figure
out an inexpensive way to do this, have someone hold the bike up, with
the rear wheel off the ground, so you can rotate the pedals, and watch
the drivetrain go through its operation, while you sit there
alongside, and examine what exactly is going on.. Go though-adjust one
derailleur first, and then the other.

Sheldon's read should be quite helpful in helping you, and should
there be other issues that you find wrong, or don't understand, the
great folks in this groups will hgelp you get it ironed out. Mark

daveornee said:

<SNIP>

Dear Dave,

Sorry, but your effort was no better on some newsreaders, wrapping and
breaking off the tail end just like William's effort.

http://sheldonbrown.com/derailer-
adjustment.htmlhttp://sheldonbrown.com/derailer-adjustment.html

Now I'll see if mine is any better.

Carl Fogel

Carl, Sorry I don't know about the formats for all the readers, but I
tried to improve; and my posting worked on my reader. Yours did too.
What should I have done to prevent the wrap on those other readers? I
seee some buttons on my reader, that I usually ignore: one for http://
... Maybe I should use it and not be "ignorant".

By the way, I am still waiting delivery of my special vise.http://sheldonbrown.com/derailer-
adjustment.htmlhttp://sheldonbrown.com/derailer-adjustment.html

Dear Dave,

As far as I can see, all that you can do is put a link on a line by
itself with a blank line above and below it and hope that it's short
enough not to wrap by itself:

http://sheldonbrown.com/derailer-adjustment.html

(A single line and a single address.)

Curiously, when your newsreader or editor copied my effort above, the
same odd thing happened--in some newsreaders, the link shows up broken
at "derailer-" and continues on the next line and is then re-copied
without even an intervening space on the rest of the line:

http://sheldonbrown.com/derailer-

(partial single line broken at hyphen)

adjustment.htmlhttp://sheldonbrown.com/derailer-adjustment.html

(rest of link followed by copy of entire link, all on single line)

If I didn't have a deep and abiding faith in all computer programs,
I'd suspect that there's a bug in some editor or newsreader and the
way that it handles links containing hyphens.

Carl Fo-
gelCarlFo-gel

daveornee said:

<SNIP>

Dear Dave,

Sorry, but your effort was no better on some newsreaders, wrapping and
breaking off the tail end just like William's effort.

http://sheldonbrown.com/derailer-
adjustment.htmlhttp://sheldonbrown.com/derailer-adjustment.html

Now I'll see if mine is any better.

Carl Fogel

Carl, Sorry I don't know about the formats for all the readers, but I
tried to improve; and my posting worked on my reader. Yours did too.
What should I have done to prevent the wrap on those other readers? I
seee some buttons on my reader, that I usually ignore: one for http://
... Maybe I should use it and not be "ignorant".

By the way, I am still waiting delivery of my special vise.http://sheldonbrown.com/derailer-
adjustment.htmlhttp://sheldonbrown.com/derailer-adjustment.html

Dear Dave,

Aha! I grovelled back through this thread and may have found what
caused the original problem.

When William replied to the original post, his editor or newsreader
"quoted" each line of the original not with the tradiitional
greater-than sign but with the reverse, a less-than sign, which in
HTML code means hey, a command or at least something weird is about to
start.

An example follows where it will do the least harm.

Carl Fogel

Quoted message said:

This is normal "quoting" of the previous post
for two lines beginning with greater-than marks.

<This is the mistakenly reversed and unspeakable
<lesser-than mark that began several lines of text
<and probably choked a few editors and newsreaders
<after the second post in this thread--they're looking
<hopefully for a closing greater-than and may be
<gagging when it arrives or is silently added around
<a URL

Quoted message said:

As far as I can see, all that you can do is put a link on a line by
itself with a blank line above and below it and hope that it's short
enough not to wrap by itself:

Of course, when it gets to be this much of an issue, it's well worth
accompanying the long, line-wrapped link with a short TinyURL.
--
Rick Onanian

On Tue, 11 May 2004 12:09:31 -0400, Rick Onanian <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

As far as I can see, all that you can do is put a link on a line by
itself with a blank line above and below it and hope that it's short
enough not to wrap by itself:

Of course, when it gets to be this much of an issue, it's well worth
accompanying the long, line-wrapped link with a short TinyURL.

Dear Rick,

I suspect that this particular problem was a punctuation bug that
would have shown up on some newsreaders even for http://a.com.

(That short fake URL doesn't break or duplicate or move to a separate
line on my most fragile newsreader.)

The mistaken use of less-than signs for the normal greater-than signs
may have led some newsreaders to choke on lines that looked just fine
in the original editor.

William's original quote with the wrong-way angle-brackets shows up
just fine, for example, in Google Groups, which is relentlessly ASCII
and faithful to whatever we monkeys pound into the keyboard. The URL
appears on a separate line, unbroken, unrepeated.

But in cycling forums, the URL appears highlighted on the same line as
the introductory text, breaks at the hyphen, and the rest appears on
the next line, not highlighted and lost to any simple double-clicking.

In news.comcast.giganews.com through Forte, the line breaks at the
hyphen, is highlighted above and below, and the URL is duplicated
immediately without any spacing.

So even a short URL on a separate line would probably have looked fine
in the original, but goofed up various viewers after they tried to
pass the greater and less than signs through their digestive tracts.

Eventually, google groups will catch up and show all this about as
plainly as possible, beginning with the original post at:

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=fe5916f0.0405101813.6913bf1b%40posting.google.com

or

http://tinyurl.com/2npk7

Again, I suspect that length was not the problem and that everything
looked fine to each person who was posting in their own newsreader,
but that the addition of numerous

Quoted message said:

's

to mark lines from the previous post then stumbled over the mistaken

<'s

used to mark such lines in the second post of the thread.

Quoted message said:

Carl<Fogel>

On Tue, 11 May 2004 11:02:32 -0400, Sheldon Brown

may have said:

I've been creating forwarding links to simplify popular URLs on my site,
so for most links you will no longer need the ".html" part.

Also, on my site, and on many other sites, the "www." part of the URL is
not needed, though it may appear as a result of following old links.

Thus, you can get that page from:

<http://sheldonbrown.com/derailer-adjustment>

Umm, Sheldon, when you're building links from one page to another,
could I politely request that you eschew the meta-refresh relay pages,
or at least put in a manual "If your browser doesn't forward you to
the next page automatically, please click here" tag on them when you
use them? Due to the penchant for use of the meta-refresh tag by
malicious site coders to pass a visitor to a URL that's obfuscated, I
have all of the systems here configured to ignore that tag; this
mirrors the policy at several large corporate locations in this area
as well.

--
My email address is antispammed; pull WEEDS if replying via e-mail.
Typoes are not a bug, they're a feature.
Words processed in a facility that contains nuts.

On Mon, 10 May 2004 22:40:22 -0400, William Holiday

may have said:

This ought to do the trick:
http://sheldonbrown.com/derailer-adjustment.html

I find these to be helpful as well:

http://www.parktool.com/repair_help/howfix_frontderailleur.shtml

http://www.parktool.com/repair_help/FAQrindx.shtml

--
My email address is antispammed; pull WEEDS if replying via e-mail.
Typoes are not a bug, they're a feature.
Words processed in a facility that contains nuts.

On Tue, 11 May 2004 09:31:53 -0600, [email hidden] may have

Quoted message said:

If I didn't have a deep and abiding faith in all computer programs,
I'd suspect that there's a bug in some editor or newsreader and the
way that it handles links containing hyphens.

It may be an artifact of the Cycle Forums interface; I think Dave was
posting from there.

--
My email address is antispammed; pull WEEDS if replying via e-mail.
Typoes are not a bug, they're a feature.
Words processed in a facility that contains nuts.

On Tue, 11 May 2004 03:32:13 GMT, daveornee <[email hidden]>
wrote:

<William Holiday wrote:
< > On 10 May 2004 19:13:22 -0700, [email hidden] (FFBSensei) wrote:
snip
< > This ought to do the trick: http://sheldonbrown.com/derailer-http://sheldonbrown.com/derailer-
< > adjustment.html
<
<
<or put it on one line so it can be clicked as a link: http://sheldonbrown.com/derailer-
<adjustment.html

It's your software or rather your interface... among other things ;-)

On Tue, 11 May 2004 10:45:38 -0600, [email hidden] wrote:

<Again, I suspect that length was not the problem and that everything
<looked fine to each person who was posting in their own newsreader,

Roshomon!

William Holiday said:

On Tue, 11 May 2004 10:45:38 -0600, [email hidden] wrote:

<Again, I suspect that length was not the problem and that everything
<looked fine to each person who was posting in their own newsreader,

Roshomon!

Dear William,

MARGE: Come on, Homer, Japan will be fun. You liked Rashomon.
HOMER: That's not how I remember it!

Carl Fogel