Is it odd not to have a fine adjustment knob on gear shifter

radia

Hi,

I recently needed to get one of the gear shifters on my bike replaced. The old one had a twisty knob (sorry - don't know technical term! ) at the point where the gear cable enters the shifter, that could be used to adjust the tension if the gears weren't switching up/down smoothly, e.g. if the cable stretched a bit in use. I've just noticed the new one doesn't have this (when I went to use it), which seems a bit of a pain.

Is this unusual? Could the bike shop have left a bit out accidentally? A quick look at the other bikes among my friends/family shows they all have this kind of adjuster. It's a Shimano shifter (doesn't indicate the product line) on a hybrid bike, if that makes any difference.

Thanks.

macnab

I put a 2nd hand shifter onto my daughters bike recently and it had that adjuster on it, the old shifter didnt have it. I think the replacement part was a Shimano SIS component, I think they only used them on mountain bikes but I am not too sure.

blorg

It is called a barrel adjuster. There should be another one on the rear derailleur if that is what you need to adjust. There could also possibly be one on the frame downtube for the front derailleur.

petethedrummer

Last time I had my gears serviced by a shop mechanic he told me that barrel adjusters up at the shifter weren't necessary. I haven't missed mine and an occasional adjustment at the rear does the job.

blorg

Not necessary but you do need them somewhere (they will not be on the front derailleur) and the advantage of having them on shifter or frame downtube is that you can adjust while riding.

Holyboy

Hi all,i presume its a flat bar bike!front(left hand) shifters will always have a barrell adjuster on them but rear(right hand) shimano shifters sometimes dont as all thier rear mechs have them,though this may not be true for some of thier newer Mtb ones,sram shifters always have them as thier rear mechs dont,as for drop bars,well ive had so many bikes come through my hands where a shop has let a bike out with no barrel adjuster on the front,when all they have to do is fit an inline one to the cable,it makes no sense to me why they wouldnt!if your worried about handy adjustment you could always get an inline one fitted close to the shifter.but there should be no cable stretch on a new cable if its fitted properly.

petethedrummer

Holyboy wrote: »

but there should be no cable stretch on a new cable if its fitted properly.

How do you do that? I installed some new cables a couple of weeks ago and gave them their post stretch adjustment last night. Do you pre-stretch them before installation?

doozerie

Something to be aware of is that not all rear derailleurs have a barrel adjuster built in. For example the Shimano XT Shadow M772 doesn't have one. I'm not sure if all Shimano Shadow derailleurs are the same. It's the only one I've encountered without a barrel adjuster, and it may be related entirely to the low profile design of the Shadow derailleur, but perhaps it is a trend with some other brands/models too.

Holyboy

Ah there are special secret ways!!! Haha.
A good pull with the hands into place, but very carefully!
Inner cables don't stretch at all, or if they do it's very minimal and doesn't affect shifting it's the outer casing bedding into the caps that causes the so called "cable stretch" a terribly misused term. If shops done things properly in the first place this phrase would never have come into use, though I suppose it started when indexed casing was invented and it was new and stuff, things like that take a while to iron out the creases, but it's been years at this stage and shops should know better by now.:rolleyes:

el Bastardo

I had a rental bike a while back (a Trek 4300 maybe?) that had some cheapy Shimano shifters without barrel adjusters. No idea what was on the rear end - Didn't look. However, if the shifters/derailleurs aren't matched, it's quite possible that you could end up with no barrel adjustment at all.

Cables are sold pre-stretched these days, aren't they?

petethedrummer

Holyboy wrote: »

Inner cables don't stretch at all, or if they do it's very minimal and doesn't affect shifting it's the outer casing bedding into the caps that causes the so called "cable stretch" a terribly misused term.

I can't remember if I changed the outers. I think I did. Good to know.

blorg

Even disregarding stretch, initial derailleur setup would be a royal pain in the ass without a barrel adjuster somewhere. I find occasional tweaking is necessary, but most of my bikes are 10 speed which is definitely more finicky.

radia

Thanks everyone!

Yes, it's a flat bar bike and it's the rear (right) shifter. It does have a barrel adjuster on the other end, at the back of the bike.

blorg wrote: »

Not necessary but you do need them somewhere (they will not be on the front derailleur) and the advantage of having them on shifter or frame downtube is that you can adjust while riding.

This is what I was thinking. Normally, when it needs adjusting I tweak it as I'm cycling until it's right, and my gut instinct on finding it wasn't there was how annoying it would be to have to stop for each adjustment. I guess that's probably an overreaction since it's not something that needs doing too often. It's just when you've had something and it's (preventably) taken away without warning (if I'd known some shifters had it in front and others didn't, I'd have made a point of asking for one that did) it's human nature to be more irritated about it that is warranted!

I do find myself needing to adjust the tension a wee while after each cable change though. Clearly I don't have the right technique!