Front Derailleur - Mountain Bike Zen

Front Derailleur Adjustment

Similar to adjusting your rear derailleur you have cable tension and cage alignment to look at.

If the chain is struggling to shift to the larger rings you will probably need to add some tension to the cable. The front derailleur often has a barrell adjuster on your bars so you can make minor tension adjustments easily. If this is not sufficient then you may need to go to the front derailleur and tighten the cable using the fixing bolt by loosening this and pulling the cable through and tightening it up again. Minor adjustments can be made using the barrell adjuster.

You also have a low and high screw on the front derailleur and as with the rear derailleur these control the alignment of the cage with the chain ring. With your chain in the lowest gear (largest rear cog and smallest front cog) check the cage alignment, it should be around 3mm above the chain ring and parallel to the the ring and the frame. If not you may need to loosen the frame clamp allen key so you can adjust the height and alignment of the cage, then tighten. It should importantly be aligned with the largest cog, if not you need to adjust the alignment with the H screw which should be labelled H and is usually the highest screw of the two, or the farthest from the large cog. Do the same with the smallest cog - adjust using the L screw.