Derailed Dérailleur

Shimano Alivio Rear Dérailleur

As if the trouble of setting up front-dérailleur (Shimano M191) on my cycle (Schwinn Sporterra Sport) was not enough, during last few rides, I had been experiencing severe problems with my rear dérailleur (Shimano Alivio). Now Alivio is not supposed to let you down within merely 1000kms. It's supposed to be quite sturdy and reliable for long time. But here I was clinching my teeth, Clint Eastwood style, every time the chain slipped or didn't get to the right cog. The dérailleur was acting up.

It was as if it had developed a mind of it's own. Now I am not the sort of person who has problem with things developing a mind their own. After coming across so many people who have lost theirs (thanks to my corporate experience) and having been living in a country where even the prime minister doesn't have his own, things having minds of their own usually comes across as a breath of fresh air. As long as the mind is confident of what it's doing, that is. The mind of this dérailleur was a different story.

Whenever I tried to shift the chain from a smaller cog to a bigger one, it hesitated. And not only that, it kept on hesitating for quite some time. On one trigger from me, first the chain would move to a larger cog, then the dérailleur, low on confidence as it was, would move chain 2 cogs down. Again, out of sheer benevolence, it would move the chain 1 cog higher. Then back to where it came from. And this would go on. As a result the chain kept moving from one cog to the other until I had to up-shift/down-shift drastically, and I kept fretting a lot due to the slipping chain.

When it came to shifting the chain to the right desired cog, the dérailleur was as confused and clueless as Venkatesh Prasad batting against a spin attack. Here comes the ball ... should I go on front foot ... ummm no, I think I should stay put on back-foot ... my team is in trouble and i am the lone warrior standing ... so defend is all I want to do, but it has to be the right defense ... so back-foot it is ... but hey, why are they chuckling? ... oh, the bells are on the ground, it must be a dead-ball ... the bells are on the ground because I am castled? ... what? how? when? ... but how come the ball pass by me without me knowing? ... it went from under my bat you say? ... oopsie-daisy ... today is probably not my day ... but you know, what hurts me more is that that little bugger didn't even say Hi! while passing by ... moron.

When I would climb an incline, the dérailleur stayed busy with its jugglery and as a result the pressure on peddle pulled the in-transition chain off the cogs. The chain would slip and that put me in a grave danger of losing balance and taking a good gracious fall. I would keep thinking about what could have been the reason behind this Alivio going kaput on me. It might be the chain - has it elongated?. It might be that I tightened the quick release lever a bit too much on the rear wheel, which might have caused the cogs on the wheel to go out of alignment. I might have washed out the grease inside dérailleur during last wash and that might be causing it. I kept guessing.

Finally today morning, a situation came when I started giving a serious thought to kicking and ripping the dérailleur open for once and all. But good sense prevailed. I broke my ride, got down and gave it a kind attention with a little bit more patience. But even after moving the dérailleur around and taking a look at it from every possible direction, I understood zilch. And then suddenly, like a stroke of lightening, I noticed an adjustment knob where the shifter cable connects to the dérailleur. There were also the HIGH and LOW screws there. But adjusting those HIGH and LOW screws was out of question because I had learnt my lesson while adjusting the front dérailleur. You don't touch them unless you are committed to the adjustment and you have plenty of time at hand. I had none of it. So I decided to give that adjustment-knob a try. The knob would turn either ways, so I turned it in such a way that it came out, increasing the tension on the cable. And viola! Suddenly the dérailleur started behaving like it was put on a leash. The problem was gone for good. In the next 15-20km ride the chain slip problem caused by hesitant dérailleur never appeared again.

Hmm ... So the frustrating trouble for last 2-3 rides was gone with mere couple turns on the adjustment knob. Phew! Turns out, actually doing stuff and troubleshooting problems on your own (your skill level notwithstanding), is the best way of taming a cycle, irrespective of how many maintenance manuals or DIY posts/videos you read/watch.

Gives me confidence that I will be able to manage that 'holy-grail' ride of future, without a backup. Not to mention, this is the only vehicle that gives me this confidence.