I noticed lately riding on moderate flats and downhills that I was not getting any resistance when I shifted down on the back anymore.

Funny, my first thought was, “Wow, I’m not getting any resistance. I think I might need to change the sprockets to something smaller. I must be getting in better shape!!” Man how the ego can play tricks on you sometimes.

After tuning more into the problem, I realised that I wasn’t going down to the last two smallest sprockets on the back. At this point, if I want to tear downhill, I have to stop and manually shift the chain myself, then get back on and go. Bummer, especially if getting chain oil and dirt on your hands and clothes is not too appealing. And yes, it still gets all over me when I wear my gloves. And then of course, it doesn’t always wash off immediately–double bummer.

After making a stop over to my local bike shop in DUMBO called “Recycle A Bicycle” on Pearl Street, one of the mechanics took one look at my gear mechanism and told me about the derailleur hanger. I had not known about it before, but I quickly learned that it is the metal piece hanging off the right side of the back end of the frame. It is the lowest part of the back of the derailleur and it controls how the chain shifts from one sprocket to the other. What’s keeping me from shifting all the way down is the fact that the derailleur hanger is bent inward toward the frame. So I essentially have in a way, cut off the room for the shifter to get the chain down to the two smallest sprockets.

Flash back now to the myriad times I lifted up my bike to get into a door and banged the back end. Or how many times I kept going into the elevator in my building and catching that hanger on the closing elevator door. I knew it couldn’t have been good, but I just thought I was just hitting the frame itself, not the hanger. So a new lesson learned: Don’t hit the bike on anything period.

Also I guess it goes without saying that falling off the bike doesn’t do much good for it (or yourself, or your knees) either.

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