I read the related post, but my situation is a bit different.  Additional background - I installed new 105 shifters and derailleurs two years ago (~5000 miles) along with chain and cassette.  I also had a 53T chain ring put on in 2013.  All was good.  Had slight hang-up with slack shifting (to higher gears) on rear cogs this spring, so I replaced the cable and sheaths to the rear derailleur.  All was good again.  The bearings in my freewheel started making noise last week.  Which brings me to the present.  I just replaced the rear wheel, cassette and chain on my 30-speed road bike.  The derailleurs shift perfectly and the chain travel when pedalling is smooth and quiet.  However when I stand up or dig in on a hill the chain will skip on the cassette.  It happens on all THREE chain rings in the front and the spectrum of cogs on the cassette.  I thought sure it was a stiff link in the chain, but could not find an issue with it when manually flexing each link.  I tweaked the rear derailleur to the point of shifting cogs in both directions and still have the issue.  Any suggestions?
122463
I have a mountain bike where the chain intermittently skips when put under load on the middle (and very rarely on the smallest) chain ring. It is not related to shifting.  I've taken several steps to correct it including:   calibrated front and back gear shifters replaced the chain replaced the rear gears replaced the middle gear at the pedals (which was the most affected)   To my great frustration the problem is still there! Could this be because of the derailer? The chain seems tight enough. Help from any gurus out there would be greatly appreciated.  Update: I've tried fiddling with the back screw on the back-derrailer (not the L/H-screws) in the hope that it was a chain tension issue but it did not help. I've also checked the chain for stiff links but could not find any. I am not able to reproduce it when not riding the bike so I am not certain where and how the chain skips. I am at my wits end and planning to bring it to a different repair shop with a sensai mechanic so hopefully he will be able to sort it out.  Update 2: Solved. See below.
80151
I've just had an issue pop up related to my drives.  First things first, I was working in my case when I clumsily shifted the foot of the case off of my desk. Case shifted and hit the desk somewhat hard, but only fell an inch or two. It had been properly shut down so this may not have anything to do with the issue.  After booting up, I noticed that when playing a video from my F: Drive (Seagate), it produced a whine, almost a chirping sound coming from the hard drive bay. I think I may have heard this before the drop, but quieter.  Fearing impending failure I downloaded GSmartControl and inspected the drive information. The Seagate drive displayed a high Raw Read Error Rate, as well as a high Seek Error Rate.  I've read some of these values can be high on Seagate drives from the start. This drive is about 6 months old and the producer of the noise.  I also checked my Toshiba drive, which came with a refurbished prebuilt I bought about a year ago. It showed more normal SMART data, but displayed some concerning statistics (2 "Mechanical Start Failures" and 2 "Reported Uncorrectable Errors").  Both of the drives passed the basic SMART test, but the noise was quite alarming. It would stop as soon as a paused the video and start right up again as soon as I resumed playing.  Here is an album with 3 photos of the SMART data, the Seagate did not display statistics.  Could I please have help interpreting the SMART data, and whether this may indicate an impending failure?   Thank you for your time.   Here are images of the SMART data.
98172
I have friction shifters and for some reason the front one gives me a bit of trouble. It tends to return to its most untensioned state. So say I want to shift to a higher gear, it will try to drop me back down to my lower gear. My guess is I might need to lube up the cable and shifter. Any other known solutions?
106009
My sprocket was doing loud noises and when I looked at it, it looks like this    I bought a new sprocket but I want to know, what can I do to avoid these types of problems again?  Video of issue when installed on bike:
94891
I currently have a 9 speed 11-25T cassette on my road bike. I'm thinking about switching to a different cassette with more teeth on the climbing gear. The cassette I'm currently look at is a Shimano CS-5700 10 Speed Cassette.  Can I swap my cassette from 9 speed to 10 speed without swapping my rear derailleur?  Is a 10 speed cassette wider than a 9 speed cassette or is the spacing between the gears wider?  Do I just need to adjust the wire tension in order to alter how much the derailleur moves when shifting in order to accommodate for the difference in spacing?
103892
I have a Trek 3900 Mountain bike that had a serious creaking problem whenever I would pedal.  I found that the ring that holds the Shimano sealed bearing was really loose.  I tightened it up and it helped somewhat.  It loosened up again and I put loktite on the threads and really tightened it up but it is still creaking a little.  The bearing cartridge seems fine.  Any ideas?
86568
I broke the rear derailleur on my surly karate monkey recently.  I had the bike setup 2x9. I decided to try and get home by converting to single speed via trail side repair (made easier by the horizontal dropouts on the bike).   I put the chain on the big chainring in the front, figuring the front derailleur would hold it in place. I pulled the chain out of the derailleur, shortened the chain so it would not be routed through the derailleur, and I tried to find the straightest line in the rear, and selected the 20t cog to place the chain on, this was the 4th cog in from the end of the cassette.   I pulled the rear wheel backwards to tension the chain as much as possible. I had already been using a chain tensioner (surly tuggnut) to keep it stationary, so I screwed that down to keep the rear wheel from slipping under pedaling.   However, after a short time, the chain started to upshift on the cassette. It went up a cog and jammed, shifting the non-driveside forward, pushing my tire in to my chainstays. this was difficult to fix, because I had to remove the tuggnut and undo my very tight quick release.  What's the best practice for positioning the chain in the rear to avoid auto shifting and jamming like I'm experiencing?
20996
I recently bought a new bike that came with Hayes Stroker Trail hydraulic brakes.  From day one they were squeeky and not very grippy.  I wrote it off to the burn in period that most disc brakes require.  But after a few hundred miles on them now they are just as bad.  I have bled then in hopes that air in the line was causing the problem.  I got several air bubbles out of the line which helped with the squishiness of the lever, but alas the brakes are still noisy and lack that braking power that I have had with other disk brakes.    I have read a little on this problem and some say that it is just the nature of this brand of brake.  Has anyone found a solution to fixing the squeel, short of buying better brakes.
14180
In the past, I personally have only used WD-40.   However, I have occasionally had my bicycle looked over at the locally run, free service sessions and most of the mechanics there use a hand applied type of greasy gel (I forget the name).  Questions:   Is WD-40 suitable for bicycle chains? Would alternatives provide better chain longevity? When shopping around for lubricant, what are the most important things to look for? What do you use and why?  (optional added extra) Any tips for reducing chain wear?
62200
I've got a Boardman Road Sport which I use for commuting and doing reasonable length rides during the week etc. I have Shimano Claris as my rear derailleur and so is some of my groupset. I would like to upgrade my cassette to an either 9 or 10 speed to give me a greater variety of gears. To do this do I need to change my rear derailleur from 8 speed to Shimano 105 or something similar? Or can I just change my cassette? Do I also need to change my shifters as well?
98067
so I am creating a few posts about bearings and wheels, (story so far):      I have now got the wheels, bearings and freehub working.  Started riding to work this morning and I almost couldn't stop at a junction.  Thankfully wasn't going too fast.  I physically can not get the wheel to lock.  I have to use both brakes at full force to get the bike to roll to a stop.  If I only use one brake I would not stop at any junction in time.  Could the cause be any of the following:   Over greased bearings? Over greased axle? not tightened cone hubs enough? not tighted axle enough?   I do not have any grease on the disk brakes them selves.  Rather nervous getting on the bike now.  Don't seem to be doing too well with this bike home fixing thing.  over greased bearings?  EDIT  Forgot to mention that it is hydraulic disk brakes.  EDIT 2  So in the end I took it to the LBS as I didn't have much confidence in my self at this point.  They had to replace the front pads but where able to clean the rear and cleaned the rotors.  (I had tried to clean the rotors but obviously not vigorously enough).  He said it was a bit of a pain to do.  All is working again.  They double checked my wheels and said I had put them back together correctly which is reassuring.  Thanks for all the help
50892
I have this master link that came with my chain (Snap On type). In the first picture it is distinctly the one on the left - not a spring clip.  Try as I might - it doesn't seem to be long enough? Do I need to use those funky chain pliers for it? How much can I compress that link? Thanks.
10566
My chain broke and in a moment of silliness (I was cold wet and slightly annoyed)  I threw the broken one away before thinking about measuring the new one.  Is there a guide to getting the chain length/tension correct ?  It's an 8 speed road bike (Shimano Sora back, double ring front)
38651
I have a 2013 Shimano XT rear derailleur. It is part of a 2x10 drivetrain. How can I find out if it is a medium or a long cage one? The picture below shows the derailleur.
112196
I've recently converted into 2spd crankset so I've bought a new 2spd road lever. I'm really struggling now to tune the front derailleur. Could you please assist me by answering this questions:   Why the shifter does 2 clicks instead of 1 when you go up? Is that normal? It's 2spd shifter isn't it supposed to have only 1 click? And at the same time ... When I do one click up with the shifter the derailleur moves but always seems like not far enough so I need go up for another click, which leads to ... When I try to go down the gears and I release the shifter that was clicked 2 times it goes all 2 click at once and the derailleur makes this ugly very loud clutch back to the first gear. It doesn't sound right at all.   Can you tell me what am I doing wrong here? I guess I'm missing something very important here, but I don't know exactly what.  I watched bunch of youtube instructions on how to properly tune a front derailleur, but I still facing the same problem over and over again.  Thank you in advance, and please ask if the question is not clear enough.
15681
How do you tell when it's time to replace a cassette? Are there any specific wear patterns on the teeth to watch for or symptoms specific to a worn-out cassette?
116232
A little mishap happened today during cleaning my bicycle. I tried to take off the sprocket wheel for easier access, but instead I opened the lock nut of the hub (cassette type) and the balls came out.  Before I can put this mess back together I got some questions:   What kind of lubricant/grease do I need for the ball bearings? There are two ball bearings in the wheel. One with smaller balls (the one on the sprocket wheel side), the other has bigger balls. Former used some black grease while the latter used a green, jelly-ish one. I'm confused, do they need different types of grease? To solve my initial task: How would you get the sprocket wheel off of the wheel/hub/cassette? Does this require a special tool? I tried pulling, but I'm afraid to break something when pulling too hard.