Rear derailleur having problems

[ballininthamix]

I just pulled my 10 year old Raleigh out of storage and started using it to commute the 5 miles to work. It has about a year of light use on it. Everything was working fine for the first couple weeks. Then yesterday, on my way home, the gears started slipping. I'm guessing some adjustments need to be made because of the age of the back and the infrequent use.

It seems like it's trying to downshift but jumps right back to the gear it should be on. This only happens in 6th and 7th gear. I watched the derailleur adjustment video on here and tried adjusting the cable tension. I couldn't tell any difference after tightening the cable. I didn't mess with any of the screws yet. Can anyone give me any tips? I plan on doing a complete tune up this weekend, but in the mean time I'd like to be able to use the bike without the gears skipping every three cycles.

[DaveM]

If it is truly "skipping every three cycles", you might have a stiff link in the chain. Try backpedalling to see if the chain jumps a little as it goes through the derailleur pulley wheels roughly every 3 pedal rotations.

Beyond that, it might help to know more about what kind of bike, shifters, etc. If it has index shifting, cable tension adjustment is an obvious place to start. Does it jump more if you're putting lot's of pressure on the pedals, or that doesn't matter?

[ballininthamix]

Thanks for the reply. I ended up just taking it in to my local shop. Turns out it just needed a skilled technician to adjust it. And he didn't charge me!