Quote Originally Posted by SuperRunt View Post
Take it back to the bike shop! This is not something you should "just get used to". If you've only ridden it 7-8 times, you didn't buy the bike that long ago, right? It could be that it's just a matter of getting the bike tuned because of the initial stretch in the wire etc. At my LBS, that's a free service...
I will definitely take it back to the shop to have them take a look -- I just want to have a good idea of what I want to say and how to approach it.

I actually bought it last fall; I got into a car accident right around the time I bought it, and was too beat up physically and emotionally to really put it through its paces. (I did try riding right after the accident; it was a mistake for me.)

I have had them tune the bike several times since I got it, and they'll certainly keep looking at it as long as I have questions or issues. I've looked closely and I do *not* believe this is an issue with stretch. This is an issue of physics -- when the front ring and the rear cog are both lower than the derailleur, the chain rubs against the derailleur. If the derailleur were any lower, it would hit the big front ring. It looks to me like whoever put it all together put the components in the only places they possibly could go.

I built up the components list myself, so it's certainly possible I chose some stuff that doesn't work well together, or just doesn't work well together in combination with the specifics of my bike geometry. I do have a mixture of SRAM and Shimano, so maybe that has an impact.