tonyride
Don't piss off the red guy
I have a new bike with Shimano Deore 12-speed rear derailleur, chain, and cassette. The bike arrived perfect and the shifting was spot on. It remained this way for a couple of rides until on a steep rocky climb when the rear wheel brushed up against a rock on the drive side and it wedged the cage and lower jockey wheel into the spokes. Luckily I heard the racket early and stopped pedaling immediately so I didn't crank down on it much to avoid any further damage. I carried the bike up to the top to assess the situation. I was able to free the cage and jockey wheel from the spokes with the bike upside down. Then I checked the alignment of the derailleur and the hanger. The hanger looks pretty straight (BTW, it uses the SRAM UDH) but the derailleur cage looks a little bent but was bending outwards away from the wheel instead of inwards as you'd expect. I checked the shifting and it wasn't as precise as before but was still shifting. I tightened up the L limit screw a bit to keep it from overshooting the largest cog and did the remainder of the ride even if I'm unable to shift into the lowest gear. When I got it home I checked the hanger alignment with my Park Tool hanger alignment tool to check it out. It was off a bit so I straightened it out. I put the derailleur back on and still wasn't shifting like it did when new. I took a closer look at the derailleur itself and specifically the cage. I did some research and found out that all of the Shimano 12-speed derailleurs from Deore to XTR have that little bend outward and a slight twist to the cage. So over the weekend I took long close look at the cassette, chain, derailleur, and I also put a new hanger on it. I adjusted the limit screws, checked the B-tension gap, etc. I got it to where it shifts perfectly from the highest gear (smallest cog) all the way up to the lowest gear (largest cog). But on the way back it's a different story. From 1st to 2nd and 11-12th gear it'll shift with just one click. But everything in between it won't shift with just a single click but it sounds like it is trying. I click again and it'll jump 2 gears. It is as if its not springing back hard enough. Any thoughts? Sorry for the long message.