Chain rub on a triple - to be expected?

[RolliePollie]

I have Ultegra/105, Truvativ/LX, and Sora/Campy Mirage/2200 mixes. Normally, I won't get it unless I'm "cross chaining" i,e, using the big ring with the biggest cog on the cassette or vice versa.
By "hard to pedal"- are you referring to small cogs or the big ones?

I don't know my terminology - it's so hard to explain in words!

By hard to pedal, I mean the smallest gears on the back wheel. So I guess my biggest problem is when I'm on my small chain ring and my smaller gears on the back. And my secondary problem is when I'm on my middle chain ring and the smallest gears on the back. Which I guess means that the problem is when I start cross chaining. Although I think maybe it's cross chaining way before it should be?

Starfish - I'll ask my LBS about trim. I hope I have this option. But I won't try it myself...I'm sure I'd mess it up even worse than it is now!

[Fredwina]

sounds to me like you're OK. I think almost any bike would do that.

[RoseC]

Sara,

I'd definitely ask your LBS about trim. I'm still getting the hang of it myself... I posted a thread here a few weeks back because I thought my front derailler was out of whack since I got chain rub up front when I was in the smaller cogs (higher speeds) in the back.

Turned out I wasn't using trim properly. On my bike, when I'm in those gears in back, my shifter for the front has a sort of half shift thing it can do - I push the inside lever a little bit (not allll the way across - just about halfway), there's a sort of pop, and the rub stops. I'm still not real clear on how it works - seems like that adjustment just magically becomes available when I need it.

I need to read up on it. And probably ask the bike shop folks for another tutorial.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Sounds pretty normal to me. You can't use ALL gear combinations, because you'll be cross chaining. Once you get chain rub that can't be fixed by trimming the front, it's a sign that you should change to the next front ring.

[mimitabby]

yes, yes.
don't go farther than the 5th gear in the lower chain ring.

however, you should be able to reach ALL of them in the middle chain ring.
if you can't you need an adjustment.

[spokewench]

Ditto to Mimi: Whether you have a double or a triple, you can't use all the gears are your rear cog in all of your combinations up front. You want to avoid as they say above, cross-chaining. That means you don't want to be in your little ring up front and your little gears (harder gears) in the back. Just switch to your next chain ring, i.e. when you start getting chain rub in the back, gear up in the front to your middle chain ring. Mimi is right, you should just about be able to use everything in the back from the middle. Occasionally, this won't work dependent on how big your cog differences are in the back, so you might not be able to use your last cogs in back on the small side and big side from your middle chain ring.

spoke

[RolliePollie]

Cool! So I'm gonna head to the LBS for some possible adjustments, and then try to avoid certain gear combinations. Now that I can actually switch chain rings without dropping the chain every sinlge time, maybe I'll change rings a bit more often. I have Sora shifters so I'm not sure I have those half-click adjustments. Seems like if I mess around with the left-hand shifter, it tries to change rings on me. Perhaps when I go to the LBS, a little lesson will be in order too!

The great advice here just continues to amaze me! Thanks to everyone