Mechanical Shimano Front Derailleurs--do they just suck? EDIT: No, I do

[NHAero]

Originally Posted by Gummee

The brown coated cables did that fairly quickly but the green coated cables don't seem to have the same problems.

The Jagwire Pro or Elite polished cables are great. I've got them on most of my bikes now.

I do the 'cheap SOBs are us' method of changing cables: the new cable goes on the rear derailleur side, moving the old rear derailleur to the front derailleur side since the front isn't nearly as important as the rear. Both sides get new housing since that's relatively inexpensive.

Speaking of which... I need to recable a few bikes here soon

M

Curious - how often do you re-cable, and what is the prompt - miles, time, other?

[Gummee]

Originally Posted by NHAero

Curious - how often do you re-cable, and what is the prompt - miles, time, other?

I usually re-do the cables and housing every 12-ish mos depending on how often I've been riding. I started training again in Nov-ish. Had been JRA since the virus kerfuffle started so time to do cables

M

[rothwem]

Well, OP here, figured I’d bring this one to a close—turns out it’s the FSA chainrings. I swapped the crank onto my bike with the flawlessly functioning Force22 Yaw front derailleur and it actually works worse than the Shimano setup did.

Upon looking closer at the rings to see *** was wrong with them, I realized that they’re marked as being 9/10 speed compatible. I didn’t realize there was any difference between 9/10 speed chainrings and 11-speed rings but I guess there is.

Anyways, I guess I’m in the market for some 11-speed 110bcd 2x chainrings, anyone holding?

[weisan]

I doubt that's the problem, I mixed 9-10-11 speed cranksets and derailleurs all the time.

[rothwem]

Originally Posted by weisan

I doubt that's the problem, I mixed 9-10-11 speed cranksets and derailleurs all the time.

Yeah, I've seen the same thing on the internet. Must be something weird with these chainrings? Just put the SRAM crank from my Force22 bike on the Shimano bike and it works fantastically.

[Wunder]

Originally Posted by rothwem

Yeah, I've seen the same thing on the internet. Must be something weird with these chainrings? Just put the SRAM crank from my Force22 bike on the Shimano bike and it works fantastically.

I've never liked FSA chainrings. I think they have the timings on the ramps/pins and shift gates all wrong. They're also soft. Combine those two and they shift poorly. I think you'd have better luck using 10 speed (110 BCD five arm) Shimano rings on those cranks even with the speed mismatch. Other brands likely work too but I haven't used them (11 speed Shimano rings won't work as those are four arm).

[NHAero]

Originally Posted by weisan

I doubt that's the problem, I mixed 9-10-11 speed cranksets and derailleurs all the time.

+1 on this for me. 3 of the 4 drop bar bikes I own and ride regularly are running TA Zephyr 9-10 or SRAM 10 and they shift fine with Shimano FDs. I like TA rings, they look good, they shift well, and they come in all teeth sizes.

[rothwem]

Well I figured out what was going on, turns out that the power2max spider I was using is not compatible with the FSA rings. When I first mounted the small ring onto the P2M spider, I noticed that the small ring had a wave in it, it was because there were little impressions where the spider arms should go. I didn’t see any reason not to, so I flipped the little ring around like so, and the ring was straight again.

Well, I guess that put the ring in the incorrect orientation somehow and made it not work. I put it on a regular force22 spider and now it works great with the force22 front derailleur. I noticed that the little ring’s teeth are slightly offset, and I think that caused the lateral spacing of the rings too wide and not work.

It fits with the issues I was having with the Shimano setup—either the chain would struggle to go on the big ring or if I adjusted it, it would go on the big ring easily but not come off.

Anyways, I’d like to use my power meter, so I’m probably going to get new rings. Thank you guys for following me along on my troubleshooting adventure.

[jamesdak]

Well, if you really need to change the chainrings and want great front shifting then Wickwerks has the solution for you. These babies work better than anything else I've used.

https://wickwerks.com/product-category/chainrings/

[reuben]

Originally Posted by rothwem

Well I figured out what was going on

[Gummee]

Originally Posted by jamesdak

Well, if you really need to change the chainrings and want great front shifting then Wickwerks has the solution for you. These babies work better than anything else I've used.

https://wickwerks.com/product-category/chainrings/

I switch in a few sets of Wickwerks rings for CX every year. Great shifting.

I buy 34/44 rings. It is a great combo for my riding (more spin than power) here in NoVA. Sorta 1x ish cause if I have to drop to the small ring, it's probably faster to run

Recommended

M

[Turkle]

I think you should maybe change the title of this post, since it was not the dérailleur.

[rothwem]

Originally Posted by Turkle

I think you should maybe change the title of this post, since it was not the dérailleur.

Done

[Turkle]

Originally Posted by rothwem

Done

Haha - you didn't need to abuse your own reputation in the updated title! But I did get a chuckle out of it. Cheers