Deraileur hanger alignment tools - Any use?

Chips Lovell

I seem to go through a rake of hangers, mainly from bashing the bike about a bit putting whilst sticking it on/in the car.

Anyone have any experience of hanger alignment tools. Do they actually bend back the hanger into place? Or are they just used for checking if it's off? Worth the investment given that you'll often spend €20 on a new hanger?

cdaly_

One of these for the boot of the car...

morana

Vladimir Kurtains wrote: »

I seem to go through a rake of hangers, mainly from bashing the bike about a bit putting whilst sticking it on/in the car.

Anyone have any experience of hanger alignment tools. Do they actually bend back the hanger into place? Or are they just used for checking if it's off? Worth the investment given that you'll often spend €20 on a new hanger?

Get your rich club to buy one and leave it in the shop !!!

buffalo

Paging doozerie...

lescol

I have one of these:- http://www.wiggle.co.uk/cyclus-gear-hanger-alignment-tool/
It's a good tool, although, thankfully I've only had to use it a few times.

This explains how to use it:- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWiMcqR6e3w

ednwireland

lescol wrote: »

I have one of these:- http://www.wiggle.co.uk/cyclus-gear-hanger-alignment-tool/
It's a good tool, although, thankfully I've only had to use it a few times.

This explains how to use it:- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWiMcqR6e3w

i have one of those, only ever used it on a frame with a non-replaceable hanger worked though (as in gears wouldn't change before and worked after!)

Lumen

cdaly_ wrote: »

One of these for the boot of the car...

Can you arrange to put those at the side of the road wherever I might crash?

seve65

Havent tried it, but this diy method looks good

www.youtube.com/watch?v=T45tsSjyjDA

doozerie

I too have the Cyclus tool mentioned above. I bought it a few months back from RoseBikes while they had a decent sale on on bike tools - their price was good anyway, but with the discount it worked out at a little under 20euro. For that price I was willing to take a chance on it for a tool that I expected to use rarely.

I bought it primarily to check my derailleur hanger but it's designed that you use it to straighten the hanger too. It's certainly beefy enough for that purpose, but this was a replaceable hanger on a carbon frame (Canyon) and there's no way I'd risk the frame by trying to bend the hanger in situ. In theory the frame may be safe with the wheel clamped in it, but I'm not willing to take the chance with a frame I can't easily afford to replace.

Anyway, the tool was adequate to confirm that either the dropout was knackered or the hanger was bent. That seemed to confirm that my rear mech was okay, which was my initial worry and my motivation for buying the tool in the first place to check. It's a very clunky tool in use though, for the measuring part, I reckon that a DIY tool would be just as effective for that aspect of it, but a DIY tool might struggle to be rugged enough to bend the hanger if you wanted to do that too.

Cyclus make another tool for checking the alignment of the dropouts, and it'll bend them if necessary, but again that's no use for a carbon frame obviously. It allowed me to confirm that my frame dropouts are fine though, so that left my derailleur hanger as the culprit. I tried straightening it off the bike, in a vice, but it doesn't have a smooth side so with nothing to reference against bending it like that was always unlikely to work (and no other method was going to be very reliable either given that it would largely amount to belting it with a hammer, refitting to bike, checking again, taking it off, belting it again, etc.), so I bought a new one instead.

So, in short, the hanger alignment tool worked at confirming that either my hanger was bent or the dropout was knackered. With a carbon frame I don't see it being of any use in actually straightening the hanger. The other Cyclus tool above confirmed that my dropouts were okay - but with a carbon frame I'd imagine that knackered dropout(s) means visibly damaged carbon anyway, so that second tool was essentially unnecessary in this case. And given that I used the alignment tool for measuring only, then a DIY tool could do that job just as well given that pinpoint accuracy is not exactly what the tool is good at delivering (there is some play in it for a start). So for a steel frame both tools could come into their own, but for a carbon frame I reckon they are mostly overkill.

niceonetom

seve65 wrote: »

Havent tried it, but this diy method looks good

www.youtube.com/watch?v=T45tsSjyjDA

By some weird coincidence I ordered a dérailleur hanger adjuster, that cyclus one actually, just a few hours ago. Had an off last Sunday and the hanger bent so, rather than buying a new one I thought I'd get the tool - like buying a rod rather than a fish or something.

Anyway, up pops this thread.

Then up pops seve's suggestion.

I tried it. It works a treat. I think the guy in the video overcomplicates it a touch - the dishing of the two wheels is irrelevant, they need only be true for the rims to be parallel.

There's something strangely satisfying using one part of a bike to fix another.

And there's something slightly annoying about the fact that I now have a €40 tool being posted to me which I no longer need.

Chips Lovell

Thanks guys, that's all incredibly useful. I've had zero experience of them until now. Might try that DIY method myself some night, provided I can find a wheel in my collection with a threaded axle.

Regarding concerns over frame damage, surely the point of a mech hanger is that it should take any strain, so if you had a wheel in the dropouts, then the mech hanger should bend/break before the frame comes under too much pressure?

Coronal

I used one of the alignment tools on a carbon frame (Px SL pro carbon), it was fine. Realigned the derailleur in a few mins. I would say that the hangers are so flexible that they would bend/break long before the frame, especially if the frame isn't damaged from the initial impact that damaged the hanger... I do like the look of the second wheel method though!

doozerie

Vladimir Kurtains wrote:

Regarding concerns over frame damage, surely the point of a mech hanger is that it should take any strain, so if you had a wheel in the dropouts, then the mech hanger should bend/break before the frame comes under too much pressure?

That's certainly the principle, and I readily accept that perhaps I'm being overly paranoid in choosing not to bend my hanger in situ, I see it very much as a judgement call rather than it being a case of right or wrong to do/not do it. Another niggling question in the back of my mind though was whether my aluminium hanger would stand up well to being bent back into shape. It was out of line by quite a bit and aluminium doesn't take well to being bent, so I preferred to replace mine rather than risk it failing later while I'm on the bike. Again it's just a question of how careful/paranoid you wish to be, I opted to fall into the Fr. Dougal "Careful Now!" camp.

As it happens my replacement hanger arrived yesterday and I fitted it last night. The design of the new one is a little different, it's a bit beefier in the middle section where the mech attachment point meets the dropout attachment point, which made me wonder whether Canyon are addressing an issue with the older design.