Well, s*** in a bag and punch it, Chris has written a short(ish) one!

The name ‘Shimano’ is now very nearly ubiquitous*, especially on new bikes bought from Halfords, the PC World of the biking fraternity! That of course is not necessarily good publicity, but since I’m only putting together a ‘hybrid’ bike, in more senses than one, I’m not into ‘Roll-Royce solutions’. A hybrid bike would I suppose have been called a ‘tourer’ the last time I was into buying a new one, it having fairly slender less knobbly tyres compared to a mountain bike, with similar gears but larger diameter wheels, (almost as large as a racing bike) and straight handlebars.

*Is it possible to be ‘nearly ubiquitous’, or is that like being quite pregnant?

A strong but slender cable creates the sideways pull on the mechanism with its other end usually on the handlebars, although many ‘racers’ will still use a control lever lower down on the frame. In my own case, I’ve gone for matching Shimano ‘indexed’ levers, with a kind of sequential gears control, that is to say, you use your thumb for ‘up-changes’ and the index finger for down.

Min. Permissible Rear Gear Sprocket 11 Teeth (therefore it needs to be able to cope with [27-11=16] 16 teeth difference in chain length)

There’s not actually a lot to tell about the fitting process, it’s the adjusting it to work that takes time. The unit is designed to be bolted onto a special bracket, that most bike frames are already equipped with these days. The Ridgeback frame that I’m using for my new and ‘doned’ parts is no exception, so the mechanism can be physically attached to the bike with one bolt, which is supplied. Likewise, the control cable is easy to thread into place and loosely connect – there absolutely NO WAY that this will work without adjustment, so don’t bother to tighten anything yet, OR trim the cable to length.

Having somewhere to hang the bike while you pedal it is very useful. I’ve made a sort of gallows that fits in my B&D Workmate, but you can get proper bike stands with a clamp, if you’re really serious about bike maintenance. These are the cycling equivalent of being able to put the car up ramps, and they make working alone on a bike so much easier..

The main problem with dérailleur gears actually stems from their chief advantage. Whilst they are comparatively easy to understand the workings of, thanks to their open-to-the-air visible construction, this latter feature means that any lubrication will also be a magnet for road dirt and dust. It is therefore necessary to clean them fairly often, and start all over with the lubrication process. The Shimano’s tough plastic pulleys will resist a certain amount of wear and tear, but they do revolve rather more quickly that the bike’s road wheels. These are relatively easy to replace, thankfully. Other adjustments may be need – my existing experience with this gear type shows that ‘indexed’ gears, i.e. the ones that give you a numbered indicator at the handlebars, need fairly frequent tweaking to keep them stepping onto the right gear.

So far, my use has been largely for testing but it all seems to be behaving itself, with nice almost silent down changes, and reasonably slick upchanges. Of course, the ‘proper’ cycling fraternity, the ones who get their bikes (and backs) coated in mud as a right of passage will probably tell me that this one’s not the best to get, but heh, it’s reasonably priced and as long as it lasts a few thousand miles, that means it will last me years in effect; it’s only one of my two bikes after all, and the least useful one at that. My other one folds up into the car boot to be taken anywhere.