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@allsop
First time building up a (geared) bike from scratch and I'm really struggling to get the FD working properly.
First attempt resulted in not being able to shift up into the big ring, though I couldn't tell if this was because of a lack of tension, or because of poor alignment. The cable sounded like a bowstring, so I don't think it was a tension issue, but I'm obviously a novice.
Leads me to alignment... I've got a braze on FD, mounted via a clamp on adapter. No matter how much I rotate or angle the adapter or the derailleur itself, I can't get the outer edge of the derailleur to sit 'over' the big ring. I THINK this might be causing my shifting issues, as the FD simply can't move far enough across? Do I need to try a different adapter? Fashion a little shim to shift everything 'out' more?
That all said, I am able to manually push the FD with my hand from small to big ring whilst turning the cranks, albeit with a lot of chain rub, so maybe it IS aligned ok?!
Tldr: do I actually need the derailleur aligned directly over the big ring? How much tension should there be in the cable when clamping in the small ring? What other obvious things might I be missing?!