Derailleur hanger alignment tools are worth it, trust me

Bent my hanger last month on a trail near Boulder and tried the old eyeball method for two rides. Shifting stayed crunchy no matter how I tuned the cable. I finally bought a $45 alignment gauge, spent 10 minutes with it, and it shifts like new. Has anyone else found that skipping this tool just wastes more time in the long run?

1 comments

1 Comment

clark.faith11d ago

Wait, you ACTUALLY tried to eyeball a derailleur hanger alignment? Like, for TWO whole rides? I mean, I get being cheap, I really do, but that’s like trying to straighten a bent fork with a hammer and calling it good. My buddy did the same thing last spring and he ended up snapping his derailleur off halfway up a climb because the cage kept slapping the spokes. The tiny bit of bend you can’t see is EXACTLY what messes up the shifting, and your eye just can’t pick up a millimeter of twist. Ten minutes with a gauge beats three hours of cable fiddling and swearing every single time. Glad you finally saw the light, ha.