Chasing gremlins

[dragnusa]

Had a guy from my church that had a stroke and cant drive ask me if I could work on a bike for him. It's a 26 inch next blush mountain bike and it seems like all Ive done is chase gremlins all evening with this thing. This thing is driving me crazy.

 

[jerrykr]

there's no end to it on these bikes.

 

[baldwooky]

yep, those next bikes are the worst. you can dial the brakes and gears in all you want. ride it for 100 feet and its all sorts of messed up again. Not worth your time IMO.

 

[jerrykr]

I guess I should have said that you have to call the end. I agree with baldwooky. I can ususally get the brakes adjusted ok. On the shifters, I call it done when I get the limits set where it won't throw the chain off. I've very seldom been able to stop them from skipping cogs, etc. My guess is that owners of these bikes hardly ever shift anyway, like a road bike rider would. Good Luck!

 

[user 135]

Remove the front derailer and shifter, then place the chain on the middle ring. This still leaves more than ample gears for the average rider.

 

[whitefiretiger]

From my experience with these cheap bikes sometimes you just have to replace the shifters and or derailers to fix them especially the ones with falcon derailers.
I generly just use other low end parts that are just slightly better but make a major improvement.

 

[dragnusa]

Hit it again this morning and things seemed to adjust close to right.

 

[whitefiretiger]

I feel your pain; I'm working on a Costco bike right now.
Was a $300 bike but still super cheap grip shifters and derailers; but somehow has jagwire wires & brake pads.
Even with the upgraded SRAM 3.0 shifters & rd I'm still having issues dialing this thing in.

 

[Nagant]

Judging by other peoples experiences with inexpensive department store derailleur adjusting issues. Swapping the cables to a better quality stainless steel variety seem to ward off the inconsistent shifting gremlins sometimes. I know most department store bikes use to come with galvanized cables. Not sure about the newer department store bikes. Overall I have had fairy decent luck with cheap derailleurs and cables. They have to be re-tweaked more often than the better quality stuff for sure.

 

[dragnusa]

I would take a set old thumb shifters over grip shifters any day.