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SRAM Rival trouble

by Cooks
Wed, Feb 23, 2011 16:56
8

Hey y'all, how ya doin?
So, I'm having trouble with my SRAM Rival front shifter. I'm setting the inner cage travel, then tensioning my cable. Now when I shift to the big ring, I'm not having to touch the high limit travel, because the chain is touching the outer plate of the derailleur. A bit of screwing on the low limit fixes this, but not to the point when I can use my higher gears, as the chain still rubs on the cage. Also, this sometimes prevents me from shifting down to the smaller ring succesfully. I've found a (kinda) happy medium, but this means I can't use all of my gears successfully.

If you know what I'm going on about, that'd be a good start. Has anyone else had any trouble? I'm also really having to wrench my front shifter to shift to the big ring.

Any help would be great, if you can fathom what I'm on about....!

If you're new please join in and if you have questions pop them below and the forum regulars will answer as best we can.

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8 comments

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si offof Webbs | 13 years ago
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Yes the first Sram Rival and Force had Trim -up which wasnt good. 39

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Cooks | 13 years ago
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I'm guessing 2009. I bought it in Dec 09, so that's what I assume...

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cat1commuter | 13 years ago
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Ooh, weird. What year is your Rival? There was a change in front shifter design in 2009.

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Cooks | 13 years ago
0 likes

I totally gave up. It's in the care of my LBS. The first thing the guy said was "Wow, there's a hell of a lot of tension in that cable"...... Be interesting to see what happens next!

Thanks for all your help guys, it's much appreciated!

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cat1commuter | 13 years ago
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Sounds to me like you need more tension on your cable. Do you have a tension adjuster barrel on your bike frame, or inline in the cable? I would slacken this off before pulling the cable through the clamp on the front derailleur and tightening the clamp bolt. You should then have plenty of travel available on the adjuster barrel to increase the tension.

(It is also worth checking that the derailleur is correctly aligned relative to the front chainring. Take the chain off the front chainrings, then shift the derailleur towards its outer position and check that the inner surface of the outer plate is parallel with the chainring when viewed from above. I'm saying this because I spent ages fiddling with mine, which was shifting poorly before I noticed that it was badly aligned.)

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hoodsanddrops | 13 years ago
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Hi,

I'm sure you've pretty much figured out that SRAM is super sensitive. A quarter turn in or out on the high and low screws can make all the difference. I found Rival required a massive amount of effort to shift the deraileur anyway even when I had it all setup perfectly, no chain rub at all, correct cable tension etc etc.

This will sound like an ad for SRAM but I switched to Red and the problems vanished. Much less effort to shift, still an exact science to setup but nonetheless I couldn't go back to Rival.

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Cooks | 13 years ago
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Yeah, it's all rival...

I've set the big sprocket/small ring, and that's all good. I'm tensioning the cable, now when I shift to the big ring, it takes quite a bit of pushing on the shifter to get it to go, and when it does, it seems like it ony just changes. the outer plate of the cage is dead close to the chain. It's like the cage is pushing it over (so obviously the inner plate is touching the chain), but there seems to be a bit of give, so it springs back slightly so the outer plate touches the chain. Obviously, turning the high limit screw pushes the outside plate back to the chain and this is the opposite of what I need.

So, set the Low limit, then high, then tension the cable? Worth a try?

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roadracedave | 13 years ago
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Hi,

First off, are you using the rival front derailleur with Rival shifters? If you are then I believe they have outer-ring trim only.

In the small ring you are likely to experience rubbing in one or two gears, but this should be minimal. I've just had a look at mine, I use rival shifters with ultegra front mech, and in the inner ring I get a small amount of rub in the 11 sprocket only. No rub at all in the outer ring.

So, you've put the chain on the largest rear sprocket and the inner ring and adjusted the limit screw so its not touching the chain, and then adjusted the mech to not swing too far when in big-ring/smallest sprocket combination. When you fit the cable, make sure there is absolutely no slack in the cable as this will add a massive amount to the lever throw. When using big-ring/larger sprocket combinations just use the trim feature on the shifter to knock the front mech down a tiny bit.

Hope that helps 1

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