Just wondering how common this is, but my new X1 1×11 equipped bike is slipping in the 2 lowest gears which made my first climbs a little on the difficult side on my first ride. It gets the lowest gear fine but then slips down the next cog, but straight back up.

I will of course take it back to the LBS when I can, but how common is this and is it something I can fix myself without ruining the other 9?! lol.

Pretty sure it was ok when test rode it, but maybe I didn’t go in to these suspect gears.

If it’s brand new, likely just needs a bit of an indexing tweek. Wind the barrel adjuster out at the derailleur 1/2 a turn, (anti-clockwise) and see if that helps. If not, or it messes up the other gears take it back to the shop as suggested.

Thanks for the tip – will try… but can you let me know what one the barrel adjuster is? lol

Never messed with rear mechs as of yet!

Is the barrel adjuster on the derailleur or on the shifter?

I’m not sure if there’s an adjuster on the X1 rear mech, there will be one on the shifter though so try that.

This image might not work as it’s a long link, copy and paste the text between the square brackets into your web browser and the X1 barrel adjuster will be revealed!

Sorry, missed the X1 bit, as toofarwest says, at the shifter end. Shimano put it on the derailleur

Put it into the smallest cog at the back and then shift up one. If it doesnt go screw the barrel adjuster out to effectively tighten the cable by making the outer longer until it shifts. All the other gears should then work fine.

Smaller cogs seem all ok. Only issue is the 2 largest cogs. It must only be a slight adjustment needed as its not permanently slipping in to the smaller cogs.

You put it in lowest gear then as I was climbing it slipped back to smaller cog but instantly back up to biggest cog.

Was not on every rotation. One if those small niggles that causes major riding pain!

That’s as maybe, but what anagallis_arvensis described is the correct way to index gears, which is most probably the problem with yours. Half a twist, (as I said) may fix it, but might not, and as you, (forgive me) seem quite unsure about the problem, if you dick about with it too much you’ll make it a lot worse.

Try it, and remember what you did so you can undo it. If it works, brilliant, you leaned a bit and don’t need to waste your time taking it back to the shop for a minor adjustment. If it doesn’t work, you’ve tried and lost nothing.

You are right about being unsure! I haven’t really done any bike mechanics apart from change pads, saddles, grips etc but I do not to learn!

Will try half a twist when out tomorrow evening and report back.

Can maybe get to lbs Friday if it doesn’t work.

Bikes really aren’t hard to repair*. There are loads of good instructional videos on youtube or websites, (here!) to look at.

If you have a handy and willing mate even better, (beer and/or biscuits important to lubricate the mechanic). Get yourself a tool kit and have a go. On-one Jobsworth kits have been recommended on here before.

*addition – for the most part. There are some bloody complicated parts like the insides of shocks, when you need nitrogen charging kit. All you need to know is to know when you know f*** all. 🙂

Thanks, I want to learn, makes things easier! Hopefully half turn will fix, but not the end of the world if not!

Just spoke to LBS and they think it might need a minor tweak to the rear derailler limit screw.

Have said to turn the low limit screw out by a quarter of a turn and see if it fixes it – they said I could just pop in down there but if I can fix it by just 1 small tweak its worth a g.

Now to figure which one the low limit screw is lol!

Looking at the Sram guide I cant see clearly which one it means the low limit screw is as the pics they use in their guides are terrible! I’m sure I will get my head around it once I figure it out!

Anyone running Sram X1 1×11 have a photo which points out which screw it is?

You said the problem was in the lowest two gears: if it’s slipping out of the 2nd gear into 3rd then the problem is not the limit screw. If it’s just slipping out of the lowest into 2nd then it may well be the limit screw.

Not got an X1, but low limit screw usually has an “L” next to it.

New cables do stretch on the inners until settled down after a few rides/ gear change cycles, throwing out indexing- i cant see it being the limit screws

In future, Park Tool do excellent online guides for fixing.

http://www.parktool.com/blog/repair-help/rear-derailleur-adjustment

Its slipping from largest cog to next cog down, but instantly jumping back up again making it a bit of a fight getting up the climbs in lowest gear.Its like the chain is not properly going on to the cog when peddaling. No problems with the higher gears.

That does sound like maybe the low limit screw. The 2 are labelled L & H. Think L for Large sprocket for a rear derailleur.

Look closely at the rear derrailleur as you set the limit screw, you should see it move laterally. The job of the limit screw is to stop the chain coming off the top of the cassette and into the wheel spokes. It should be set so that the derrailleur jockey wheel aligns with the largest cassette sprocket. It sounds like yours has been set a mm to far in, so the chain struggles to climb onto the top gear.