Customer told me my derailleur adjustments were too slow - changed everything

I had this guy watch me tune his Ultegra rear derailleur and he said "you're spending way too much time on the limit screws for a 2x setup." He showed me how to just set the high limit by feel and stop overthinking the low limit since it barely moves anyway. Has anyone else had a customer call them out on something that actually made you faster?

2 comments

2 Comments

james921mo ago

Wait, did he actually show you the low limit trick where you just let the cable tension do all the work? Because that's the part that blew my mind when I figured it out. I used to spend like 10 minutes dialing in the low limit screw perfectly, but once I stopped overthinking it and just let the cable pull it into place, it cut my setup time in half. The high limit by feel thing is huge too, especially on Ultegra where the stop is so obvious when you hit it. It's funny how we get stuck in these old habits from training videos and manuals, but real world mechanics just find the shortcuts that work. Now I kinda wish more customers would call me out on stuff like this, it's usually the best way to learn something faster.

luna_green1mo ago

Did you read that one blog post by a mechanic who said the whole low limit thing is basically a myth on modern groupsets? I remember @james92 mentioning something similar last week, it really made me reconsider how I set up my own bike... the cable tension method feels way more natural once you try it.