Been riding a Specialized Fatboy since I bought it new about twenty months ago. Put about five thousand miles on it, and the only problem I'd had with it, was when the BB cartridge decided to start squealing ten miles from home. I think the Shimano factory ran out of grease when it was being assembled, I removed the cartridge and the seals, and stuffed bearing grease into it with my fingers. 3,000 more miles on it and no more squealing. But that's beside the point.
Apart from regular chain service every hundred miles, I've haven't had to do much to it. Yesterday, the chain kept jumping from one cog to another in the higher ranges, and adjusting the top end barrel adjuster on the fly, didn't make it any better.
Got it up on the stand, this morning, tightened the cable and noticed that the chain was on the ninth (smallest) sprocket. Clicked the shift lever but it wouldn't go onto the tenth sprocket. A simple adjustment took care of that. So I've not been aware that I wasn't using the highest gear. The next gear up was really enough, getting me up to 20 mph, and I'm not sure I'll ever use that tenth sprocket.
I don't know who was responsible for not setting it up right, whether the factory or the bike shop. Being that I've had four botched jobs from the same bike shop, I now do all my own wrenching, and that includes wheel truing and spoke tensioning (on another bike).
Apart from regular chain service every hundred miles, I've haven't had to do much to it. Yesterday, the chain kept jumping from one cog to another in the higher ranges, and adjusting the top end barrel adjuster on the fly, didn't make it any better.
Got it up on the stand, this morning, tightened the cable and noticed that the chain was on the ninth (smallest) sprocket. Clicked the shift lever but it wouldn't go onto the tenth sprocket. A simple adjustment took care of that. So I've not been aware that I wasn't using the highest gear. The next gear up was really enough, getting me up to 20 mph, and I'm not sure I'll ever use that tenth sprocket.
I don't know who was responsible for not setting it up right, whether the factory or the bike shop. Being that I've had four botched jobs from the same bike shop, I now do all my own wrenching, and that includes wheel truing and spoke tensioning (on another bike).