New bike :) but question about adjustments to Ultegra cables

[Judith_39]

Hi again,

So after posting a while back about the dilemmas involved in purchasing a new bike, I took your helpful comments to heart, especially about stiffness and comfort, and I have myself a nice new shiny bike :)

I ended up getting a sweet offer from my local bike shop, so now I'm the proud owner of a 2012 model BMC Roadracer SL01, with compact Ultegra chainset (11-28 on the cassette - for now).

However, I've been riding it as much as the weather has allowed recently, and I've noticed that I don't have the little "screw things" on the gear cables to make minor adjustments to the derailleur position when riding - all my other bikes (old road and MTBs) have this, so now I'm confused. Is Ultegra stuff just never meant to have the need for minor adjustments? Am I meant to maintain it so well in my house that I never need to use any minor adjustments on the road? Is this normal? It's a bit too soon to take it back to the shop for it's first service to ask, and the shop's difficult to get to with my working hours... so... any help here?

I love my bike though. It doesn't have a name yet, but I'm drawn towards Odin or Erik. So sleek and shiny.......

[rebeccaC]

If you talking about the barrel adjustment to tighten/loosen the cable tension....on the rear derailleur it should be where the cable enters the derailleur. My campy ones are on the cable stops on my down tube. There are some good videos on the net for derailleur adjustments if you do a search. One of the meanings of the name Erik is 'forever strong' :)

[OakLeaf]

What she said. There really shouldn't be any need to adjust cables so often, and if that's happening to you, I would check your cable length and routing. Ordinarily the first thing I would check would be their condition, but on a brand new bike that won't be the problem.

But you can get inline barrel adjusters from your LBS that you can install where the cables exit the shifters (unless the cables are routed under the tape - not sure if current Ultegra does that or not). It can help when installing a new front derailleur cable, in particular, since there's no barrel adjuster on the FD.