The cables and housing are brand new, put on after the frame repaint in April. They have a wide loop under the front rack and I was very careful with the cut ends, so I doubt that is the problem. The RD is an Ultegra 6700, a road derailler. When we first got the bike we started with a used 54/42/26, a 12/32 cassette, and an XT derailler. I was never happy with either the front or rear shifting. Moving from a 26 to a 54 is 4 teeth out of spec for any road FD I know of. So after a year and a half I bought a pair of TA rings - 48/38 and the smaller cassette and derailler, and an Ace chain catcher in the front. I think that's when I went back to friction. Since then the front shifting has been excellent and until recently the rear friction pretty good.
I'm going to take the cassette to my favorite mechanic and get his opinion on its wear. Michael On Tuesday, June 21, 2016 at 2:41:55 PM UTC-4, Steve Palincsar wrote: > > > On 06/21/2016 08:48 AM, Michael Hechmer wrote: > > > As I posted on the tandem discussion "tandems create the worst possible > case for shifting. They have long cables that stretch a lot; the captain > & stoker may have difficulty coordinating pedal pressure during shifting; > they require a higher hi gear because its easy to spin out and they require > a lower low gear because they don't climb as effectively as a single. > Finally the captain and stoker often prefer different cadences making big > jumps between gears hard to satisfy both riders." So in order to solve > some of these problems I am thinking about moving from a 9 speed 48/38/26 & > 11/28 to a 52/38/28 with a 10 speed 11/30 or 32. > > > 54 x 12 makes a very sweet tandem top gear. I'm personally not persuaded > anything more recent betters the old XTR 8 spd 12-32 for tandem use, esp. > when mated with a triple with a 54 x 42 x 26, giving you gearing like this: > > 120.4 93.7 58.0 > 103.2 80.3 49.7 > 90.3 70.2 43.5 > 80.3 62.4 38.7 > 68.8 53.5 33.1 > 60.2 46.8 29.0 > 51.6 40.1 24.8 > 45.2 35.1 21.7 > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.