Touch0Gray said:
no way your LBS is going to get the drive-train adjusted right...unless they are taking it out and riding it for a couple hours in different road conditions. The drive train most certainly reacts differently under load than it does on a stand.
This is actually true. Unless a shop test rides your bike, and it doesn't need to be for 3 hours, the shifting won't be right. Bikes do shift different in the stand, every decent mechanic konws this and that is why they test ride your bike. Unless the customer's bike doesn't come close to fitting me, I ride it after I adjust it. If it doesn't fit me, I make the customer ride it and tell me what it is doing, but won't let them leave until they ride the bike and give me a thumbs up.
Touch0Gray said:
I got a new Bianchi in 2003 (2002 model SWEET BIKE....still handmade in Italy according to the decals) and it took me a good 3 days to get the drive-train dialed in even though it was SUPPOSED to be perfct when I picked it up. (Fact is I was MISSING 8 GEARS, didn't even shift onto the 52 up front!)
That is simply due to normal cable stretch. The shop should have told you about it. Cables are braided stainless steel... they strech when new. A stretched cable won't go to a larger chainring or larger cog because once stretched, the tension on the cable is too low. But if shouldn't have taken 3 days to get it right.
I am not trying to pick on you, but read what you wrote... you are criticzing a bike shop for not getting your shifting perfect when you just said that it took you three days to get it so. Either that shop has bad mechanics, and not trying to be offensive, but you aren't so good either, or the rigging of your bent front derailleur made it nearly impossible for your bike to shift right because it was bent. If it took you 3 days to get the shifting right, are you really in a position to criticize some kid at an LBS who wasn't going to fiddle with a bent derailleur for 3 days so he didn't have to charge you $40 to get your bike to shift?
I know I wasn't there and don't know you, your shop, or anyone involved's wrenching skills, but if it takes 3 days to fix a front derailleur, you should go to a really good shop and have them show you how to make it work right, not good enough, but right. Bikes are simple machines and getting them to work right is not a hard thing, but then we are all also human and prone to making silly human mistakes along the way. No one is exempt from that.
Russ