Bike Nirvana
Yet another cycling blog
Shimano Deore upgrade woes
February 23, 2016
Upon referral, I went to Bicycle World aka stan13 and got a Shimano Deore groupset to replace the Acera/Altus/Auriga "chopsuey" in the Pitch Comp. I was full of confidence everything will be alright, not.
Stan's tech guys at work on the Pitch Comp
The Deore groupset that they have comes with rotors that is 6-bolt type, and my hubs won't accept them. Two options remain, we can replace the hub or I keep the Tektro rotors. I chose the latter. The more serious problem was the front derailleur, is the wrong type for my frame. A high mount type is needed. The other components have been installed and I can't bail out of the situation and neither are they. They searched for a high mount front derailleur which luckily, one was found and the upgrade was complete!
Off to Timberland we go, but wait... There's little bit of rubbing between the chain and the front derailleur when in extreme gears, i.e., largest chainring to largest cogs and smallest chainring to smallest cogs.
I did research about proper gear use and there were information not to use those combinations, but what is 3 x 10 for? I decided to bring the bike to Bikes Per Minute and have JR tune it.
New problem discovered
At bikes Per Minute, JR told me that the front derailleur though high-mount is a 2x and not a 3x. We discussed about my option of returning it to Bicycle World and get the front derailleur as originally part of the Deore groupset and use the previous Altus which is 3x or convert the drivetrain to 2x. Upon JR's recommendation, I settled for the latter option.
I remembered I took a photo of the original and replacement front derailleur and here it is. The difference is now obvious to me.
Bikes Per Minute to the rescue.