Pulleys

As mentioned in another post, I hadn't been riding very much. But, as of late I have been able to get out to mountain bike once or twice per week. The few times when I did get out last year I noticed that when I would put some additional pressure and torque on the pedals there would be a little rear gear slippage. As I have been riding more over the last few weeks the slipping had become bad, beyond something I could comfortably ignore. I had been trying to remedy the situation by making small cable adjustments on the fly. That was no longer working either.

While we were still living in Grand Rapids I had the courage to begin wrenching my bike myself. The time that it would take a bike ship mechanic to fix it, as well as the cost, made it worth it to fix it myself. The Park Tool repair site became a great companion.

For this problem with the slipping gears I took a good, hard look at the rear deraileur. The rear deraileur still seemed to have good spring tension. This was a financial relief because a rear deraileur that is constructed to withstand the dirt, consistent shifting, and beating of hard mountain biking can be anywhere between $129 and $275. My hunch was that the two rear deraileur pulleys were worn. Upon further examination, the pulleys were worn to the point where they looked like pulley in the middle. Now, one would think that is what you would want your pulley to look like. One would guess that the star points and groove would make a great place for the bike chain to ease into for the ride around the pulley. But, that isn't the case at all. The points––called shark toothing, which can also happen on your front chain rings as well as they wear–– actually cause slipping because there is little surface area taking up the gap in the chain's link. So, I went to my local Performance Bike store in Seattle, and bought a package of two Fortè pulleys. I used my 3mm hex wrench to remove the old and pulleys and had the two new pulleys installed within a matter of minutes. I rode it hard last Monday and again Saturday with Sam. No slipping. Shifting was as smooth as silk, making for a great, worry-free ride.