Does Derailleur mean frustrating in French?

I got my bike back from the shop the other day. Unfortunately, the front derailleur is still not where it should be. I’m able to shift to the big ring more easily. They definitely improved that setting. I’ve still got a couple problems with the small ring tho’. The biggest is the fact that it will just miss the small ring when moving from the big ring and my chain drops. That is really unacceptable, obviously.
People who know me, know that I do my homework when I run into problems like this. Over the last week, I’ve definitely gained a ton of theoretical knowledge about how to adjust a front derailleur. Well now that it’s been to 2 bike shops and it’s still not right. It’s time to put some of that theory into practice. I adjusted the limit trim for the small chain ring. I adjusted it out away from the frame a bit. This should keep it from passing the small ring and falling off. At first I thought my adjustment worked perfectly. I couldn’t get it to drop. Then as I shifted through the rear cogs when I reached the innermost cogs, the chain started to rub against the front derailleur. That can’t be right. So I slowly adjusted the FD back inwards to the frame until the chain no longer rubs. Which returned the set screw right back to where the shop had it set. Which means the chain is going to miss the small ring up front from time to time. Ugh! My initial thought was with the smaller chain ring up front I should never be using these wimpy inner cogs anyhow, ha ha! Really, I need to look at a few more things or have the shop look at few more things… The angle adjustment is the first thing. This is a braze-on (In this picture note the bracket the FD attaches to rather than a clamp going all the way around the seat post) A Braze-on FD has little or no angle adjustment. I need to figure that out. Perhaps it’s bent? Maybe it’s the 26 of the 12-26 cassette (doubtful). B-Tension? Chain length? (doubtful). I now know enough about FDs that when I get to the shop, I should be able to work with the guys there to get it figured out. This may sound obsessive but I don’t think there is anyone out there that would find this acceptable. A dropped chain not only makes you stop to fix it, it also has the potential of being dangerous.

My bike workout last night was a higher HR tempo ride for 45 minutes. Typically I follow a Spinervals workout’s gear changes. This gives me a ton of variation, as I have to adjust my cadence to hold my HR zone. I didn’t want to deal with the chain drop issue so I found a gear that had me spinning at about 85 rpm (no computer on this bike yet) and just left it there for the entire workout.
I’ve been using the profile design saddle. I’m not in love with it. It’s not bad but I’m probably going to switch saddles soon. I’m on a mission to find the right saddle this year.

I went to the pool Thursday morning, you can see the bottom of the pool again. The people that swam Tuesday said it was chlorine overload. I’m glad I missed that. I had another short workout scheduled. If nothing else, these are good confidence builders, as the effort seems to be so easy.

I ran on the treadmill the other night, a 45 min tempo run. I was surprised to find myself running considerably faster than usual at the given HR zone. Enough so that I initially thought my HR strap must have stopped transmitting. (it was working). This week is a recovery week of sorts. Maybe I’m just not as tired. The other thought that crossed my mind was that my bike workout the day before was on the tri bike, not the road bike. I can’t imagine that was the reason for the better speed. Could it?

All in all, another good week of training. Now that it's 2011, all the races are starting to feel like they are just around the corner. All this snow reminds me that I've got some base training left to do tho'.