Road Bike Chain Tension Adjustment
If you have a bike that has a derailleur that is not creating chain tension than it may need to be replaced.
Road bike chain tension adjustment. I show the most common causes for chains that skip slip jump gears while pedaling auto shifting phantom shifting derailleur especially while under torque like climbing up a hill or standing. If your chain struggles to move away from the bike you can tighten the barrel. If you re really lucky your frame will have built in tensioners or sliding dropouts. This often occurs when the derailleur loses some of its springiness and can not effectively create chain tension.
Horizontal dropout chain tension. This decreases the tension on the derailleur allowing the chain to fall smoothly to the higher gears. If the chain won t shift or feels sluggish twist the inline barrel adjuster further up the cable turn it anti clockwise to increase the tension and try again. If it won t shift when you click it keep pedalling the bike and rotate the barrel.
How do you tighten a bike chain if the chain tension is not right. It was then i noticed the rear derailleur wasn t taking up the slack especially in the smaller cogs on the rear. All multigear mountain bikes are equipped with a high tech component known as the rear derailleur. A slackened chain will decrease your ability to transfer energy to the pedals of your mountain bike.
One is to walk your wheel into place and the other is to use chain tensioners of a different style from above. I walk through the steps to diagnose and fix the problem. New chain and cassette and the chain was slipping badly and i had a tell tale stripe of oil over the chainstay which indicates lack of chain tension. The chain sagged to the point to wear it was hitting the chain stay.
If the chain is not getting tighter after you have done this than it is stretched and time to replace the chain. As we have already mentioned chain tension is very vital when you are tightening the bike chain. There are 2 ways to tension your chain on a set of horizontal dropouts. Your shoes can easily get caught in a loosened chain during hairpin turns resulting in painful slide outs on the trail.