Trying to set up the gears on my bike from scratch after rebuild.
HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA *chokes up a bit of vomit* short pause HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHHHAAAA
I have no idea what I'm doing. Long live single speed.
I've just been out having more shed time, doing the cabling on my old bike. I got a Jagwire kit. They're clearly great cables, and it's got a billion bits and extras, but the instructions are TERRIBLE. OK, so they're fine in terms of "post the cable through here, feed it in here, put some end caps on the housing, etc, etc" but where they fall down is on telling you what all the random bits in the box are for. And why are all these end caps different? Why do these ones have sticky outy bits on? Why is this one gold with a rubber bit in it? WTF. Some of it I've figured out, some of the bits I've just left be. At the end of the day, so long as the cable pulls at the right places and has caps in all the right places I'm sure I'll be fine.
Oh yeah, and the instructions should tell you that the two lengths of brake cable are not the same length. I merrily cut the front cable to size, installed it, then went to do the back one and OH NO. We'd be doing just fine if the rear caliper was halfway along the top tube, but sadly in the real world we're about a foot short. Damn it. So, another trip to Evans to buy a brake cable this time.
I may also buy some cable cutters. It turns out the £6 ones I bought on ebay aren't even worth £6. After utterly mauling the gear cable housing I ended up borrowing my neighbour's Icetoolz cutters and they were soooooo much better. They are expensive though, for a tool I'll only need very rarely and could borrow, but on the other hand now is a great time to be buying stuff, because as long as I'm fixing up this bike for my wife to ride it's
her that I'm buying all these tools for
Anyway, I managed OK with my gear cables. Once I got them taut the gears shifted pretty much fine, even though I'd taken the derailleurs on and off, cleaned them and re-done the cables. I need to adjust the limit screws a tiny bit - the rear derailleur can be pushed in a bit too far to brush the spokes if you think you've got another gear to go at the back and the chain is clanking a bit at the front, though obviously the latter is less of a worry as it's less likely to write off a derailleur or a wheel or, you know, the person riding the bike.
It also seems that 2300 gears aren't all that bad in terms of shifting if the cables are in half decent nick. Who knew.
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