Road bike gearing question...

[RhynoCZ]

Hi, this might be a simple one, but I've recently got a road bike with 2x9 gearing. Piror to that I was used to ride 3x7 (to 9) gears and knew that you can't cross the chain too much but this lead to griding noise and I just shifted the gears accordingly. Also, the middle front cog was universal for the full range of the cassette.

Now, the 2x9 setup, yesterday I went for a ride, having the small cog front and somewhere in the middle of the casset back, after a climb. Then I wanted to speed up, shifing the casset down to the lowest gear when all of the sudden, when putting more power to the cranks, without prior griding, the chain caught on the big front cog.

Now, do I have an issue or one just should never ride the small cog front with the smallest cog or the one before that in the back, on such bike? When using the big front cog I can use full range of the cassette.

I use the Shimano SORA R3000 Compact groupset.
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'87 Honda XBR 500, '96 Kawasaki ZX7R P1, '90 Honda CB-1, '88 Kawasaki GPz550, MZ 150 ETZ
'95 Mercedes-Benz w202 C200 CGI, '98 Mercedes-Benz w210 E200 Kompressor

[weasley]

Conventional wisdom says thou shalt never run big-to-big or small-to-small, as "cross-chaining" will ruin your drivetrain and open a space-time paradox.

I have to say that whilst I will generally avoid it, I always make sure that all my multi-ring bikes will run all of the cassette cogs in all of the chainrings. It is not ideal and the outcome will depend on the chainline and the size difference between the big and small front rings.
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Yamaha XJ600 | Yamaha YZF600R Thundercat | KTM 990 SMT | BMW F900XR TE

[Ste]

Sounds like someone needs to adjust the H and L limits on their derailleurs.

As weasley says, cross chaining is something that you shouldn't do but riding with the chain on the small front chainring and the smallest gear on the rear cassette shouldn't cause the chain to try and change to the bigger chainring at the front.

Once you've set H and L limits on the derailleur and indexed your gears properly you'll have silky smooth shifting and it won't try to change gears on its own. A quiet bike is a happy bike.

[Easy-X]

Read this...

https://www.sheldonbrown.com/chainline.html

...there will be a test later
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Husqvarna Vitpilen 401, Yamaha XSR700, Honda Rebel, Yamaha DT175, Suzuki SV650 (loan) Fazer 600, Keeway Superlight 125, 50cc turd scooter

[ThunderGuts]

Not convinced it's got anything to do with limit stops, more likely the bottom bracket is the wrong size bringing the chainrings close to the frame. The middle chainring, or the midpoint between the two chainrings in this case, should align with the centre of the cassette. If the BB is too short, the chainrings will be aligning closer to the large end of the cassette, so when heading for the smallest cassette cogs the chain will be at a pretty aggressive angle and could catch the big chainring.

If the chain is crossed at that much of an angle you'll be losing loads of power and destroying the chain quickly too.
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TG.

[Ste]

The bottom bracket for the groupset only comes in one size so it's unlikely that the wrong size has been fitted.

I'd expect that the frame width at the bottom bracket will be 68mm so there will be 2mm of spacers and I can't be arsed to check the manual from Shimano to see whether they all go on the drive side or if it's one 1mm spacer on each side.

Shimano manuals and instructions are good, they're really good.

I'm guessing that Rhyno has fixed it as he hasn't returned to this thread?

[ThunderGuts]

[Ste]

It's not a square taper, it's Hollowtech II.

https://bike.shimano.com/en-EU/product/component/sora-r3000/BB-RS500.html

[ThunderGuts]

I stand corrected. Must be very specific to certain groupsets then.
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TG.

[RhynoCZ]

[Dave....]

Keep chain straight as possible and that goes for any set up.
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Honda Africa Twin

[Ste]

If you've been following what's said in Park Tools videos then it's hard to go wrong.

And here they are for anyone who's interested: https://www.youtube.com/c/parktool/

Other useful youtube channels for mechanical advice include...

GCN Tech for those of you with skinny tyres: https://www.youtube.com/c/gcntech/

GMBN Tech for those of you with knobbly tyres: https://www.youtube.com/c/gmbntech/

[RhynoCZ]

[weasley]

I was going to ask if it had a trim facility. This essentially means you can have the front mech in two positions for each chain ring. If you swing the up-shifter all the way in, as far as it goes, the FD should move to its outer-most setting - best for the outer cogs on the cassette. As you shift the cassette inwards the chain may start rubbing on the FD at which point you can ‘trim’ it; a light touch on the ‘down’ shifter should result in a light click and the FD should move just a little bit inwards. A full-blown tap on the down shifter should move it fully inwards (and change chainring) - when you use the outer cassette cogs again the chain may catch the FD and you can swing the up-shift lever just a little bit which should trim the FD out a touch to compensate.
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Yamaha XJ600 | Yamaha YZF600R Thundercat | KTM 990 SMT | BMW F900XR TE

[Ste]

Unfortunately derailleur trim functions is all new to me due to not being a road bike person.

Having watched a few youtube videos about front derailleur trim adjustment it does look like it could be the answer to the problem your having. As it's a topic I know nothing about, I'm reluctant to recommend any particular videos therefore all I can say is start at the top of the page and work your way down. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=derailleur+trim+adjustment

It's going to be something that's really quite simple to fix as the setup is so nearly perfect, it's just one combination of gears that's unhappy. Personally I'd do some reading up / youtube video watching on trim adjustments and then try playing around with those.

There is flex in your frame (and other components) but there would have to be something seriously wrong for for the flex to be the cause of the problems you're having.

[RhynoCZ]

I completely forgot about this thread.

So, I could finally set everything up to my likings. I did watch some of those videos that Ste posted and they were very helpful.

I've put the front derailleur into the top trim setting, set everything up as I normally would with a system without the trim function. Then ''rode'' the bike on a trainer, working all the gears up and down whole winter. Then (last week), I went for a ride outside, pedaling hard in the top gear ratio (50t by 11t), hearing gridning noise from the front derailleur (frame flex), so I used the barell adjuster on the cable to adjust the cable tension to the point I could no more hear grinding noises, or rathe to compensate for the frame flex while in the top gear at ''full power'', and everyrthing is just perfect right now.

With the big chain ring I can now use the 3rd to 7th cog of the cassette, then trim up and use the 8th and 9th cog, with no griding noise.

By the way, you can't tune the low trim adjustment on the big chain ring.
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'87 Honda XBR 500, '96 Kawasaki ZX7R P1, '90 Honda CB-1, '88 Kawasaki GPz550, MZ 150 ETZ
'95 Mercedes-Benz w202 C200 CGI, '98 Mercedes-Benz w210 E200 Kompressor

[Ste]

Woo yay, it sounds like it's fixed successfully.