Shiftcgrip gears help

[Mujician]

I went out on my bike properly for the first time in years. The front derailieur seemed to be pulling thechain back to the smalles cog. Why would this be? Is it because the cable is too tight?
While we are on the subject of cables- what makes brake cables loose? What is the best way of tightening them?
Are there any cycle mechanics courses?, or am I better off getting a haynes cycle book?

 

[Mr Pig]

The best way to learn is to look at what's going on a figure it out for yourself. These are very simple mechanisms we're talking about and with a bit of thought it should be obvious what's going on. Just take your time and work through it logically and systematically.

If you're not at all mechanically minded take it to a shop. You'll just waste hours of your life trying to fix it otherwise and get pissed off with the whole cycling idea.

I've never read the bike Heinous book of lies but, going by their car books, I doubt it's the best. Better asking around for a better book recommendation. They can be useful, tell you how a particular fastener works etc.

 

[MacB]

books are old style, useful for reference but I've found online instructional videos much better, this crowd are quite good:-

http://bicycletutor.com/

then Sheldons site for general info on almost everything:-

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/

finally get friendly with your LBS(local bike shop) and especially the mechanic, a bit of hands on training is hard to beat

 

[John the Monkey]

Your shifter works by applying varying amounts of "pull" to your gear cable, and releasing that "pull".

As you move to larger cogs, more tension is applied to the cable. As you move to smaller cogs that tension is released. Most shifting problems are due to;

1) Cable tension being wrong.
2) Cables not moving smoothly enough

You tend to see (1) if it's more difficult to move to a bigger cog, and (2) if changes to smaller cogs aren't smooth.

I suspect that if you've not ridden the bike for a while, the cables have "stretched", so shifting to the larger cog on the front derailleur is proving difficult because the cable isn't having enough tension applied.

First thing - DON'T TOUCH the two little screws on the derailleur - these are the limit screws, and only stop the mechanism moving too high, or too low. If your bike wasn't dropping the chain on the front last time you rode it, these shouldn't need adjusting.

Here's a decent vid on how to adjust a front derailleur;

http://bicycletutor.com/adjust-front-derailer/

(Don't worry too much about the angle adjustment &c, it's the shifting adjustment you need to look at (assuming bike was ok last time you rode it).