My front and rear shifters feel very stiff. I performed a derailleur adjustment a while ago to try and get it “perfect”. I did loosen the front and rear cables in the attempt. However, it now refuses to shift into the big ring in the front, and rear shifting is still stiff.

I’ve had a search for the problem and it looks like the leverage tab is the cause of my woes. Before I have another crack at it this evening, would anyone care to enlighten me how routing it under a little tab would have such a large impact on the smoothness of my shifters please? They were like silk before and I am having a hard time understanding how a little cable routing can cause such a difference.

The tab on the front mech? If the cable goes under that, then it tries to pull in the wrong direction and really won’t be happy.

Yup, looks like there’s one on the rear as well?

What is the “right” way to route it? Tension the cable as tight as possible with the shifter in the position for the small chainring, seat the cable on the tab, and tighten the 5mm bolt?

I’d go through this from scratch and make sure it’s all ok;

http://www.parktool.com/blog/repair-help/front-derailleur-adjustments

at least if you do the lot you’ll know it’s as good as it can be.

there’s a similar how to for the rear mech.

There’s usually a little groove that the cable should sit in under the head of the clamp bolt. If you don’t have the cable in this, or on the other side of the clamp bolt, the distance between the attachment point of the cable and the pivot of the mech is wrong, which changes the amount that the mech moves per click by the same proportion, throwing off your shifting.

Turned out that cable was seated fine. It was a tension and limit screw issue.

What a PITA. At least know I know for sure though. And yes, it has taken me this long to sort it out. Shows how little I’ve ridden 🙁