Hi everyone. Changed my bike chain after it was a bit stretched, and although I don't ride my mtb that often, it had to be done preferrably weeks ago. Had a "road" race yesterday with it and right at the start my drivetrain started skipping, didn't panicked right away but found out that managing a steady power was ok, but in some climbs it was skipping again when I was pushing maybe over z5 and such. My first thought is that maaaybe the old chain wore the cassette out and now with the new chain is not sitting in the right position and such. But then I took a closer look, and to me at least my cassette doesn't seem worn out, but since I don't have really a lot of experience with detecting worn out cassettes, it's gotta be worth at least posting it here (sorry for the dirty cassette pic, it was right after the race). Other hypothesis could be that my hub ratchet is worn and the high torque makes it slip, haven't checked it yet. Hub is a DT Swiss 370 with 18t, was planning to upgrade to 36t anyways. Any thoughts?
by martynssimpson
6 Comments
Simplest answer is likely the correct answer. I agree aside from looking beat to hell, the teeth on cassette don’t look too bad but that skipping you describe has always been attributed to worn cassette in my experience.
Since you got a new chain, and the cassette looks to be OK.
Only other issues I can think is incorrect tension on derailleur…
Bent hanger or damaged derailleur..
I would go into last gear, undo the bolt holding the gear cable, check H and L and B screws. Put tension on the gear cable with pliers or something ( just tension don’t pull really tight) then nip up the bolt and check for shifting issues…
So just make sure it’s all set up properly. If you still have issues take off the hanger and see if it’s bent
…
Looking at that derailleur, looks like too much tension. Has it always stretched forward like that and worked fine? Because that could be the issue. Any way just follow the standard set up process and it should fix it… unless like I said before it’s damaged in any way
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If you made sure your indexing is dialed in and the only thing that changed was the chain, your cassette is the culprit. Worn sprockets can be pretty tough to diagnose objectively by eye, I like to use something like a Rohloff HG-Check when in doubt.
A new chain slipping on an old cassette after only changing the chain is almost always a worn cassette.
I had the quick link on with the arrow in the wrong direction and had the exact same issue. Switched orientation and had no more issues under high pressure