Goldrush

On today's ride a noticed something askew with my drivetrain. If I coasted for a moment and then started pedaling, there was a lag before power was applied. My riding partner said my chain was hanging down. On inspection I found slack chain between the bottom jockey pulley and the front chainring. I'm not the greatest mechanic and will surely be paying my mechanic a visit . Just wondering what might cause this.

cxwrench

Sticky freehub, something caught in between freehub and hub shell, I've seen fishing line, hair, string. If Mavic the freehub would need cleaning/lube. Could be other things too. Lots of causes for this.

Thomas15

Sounds expensive.

JohnDThompson 

Sticky ratchet pawls, as @cxwrench suggests above, or a broken, gummed-up, or weak tension spring on the derailleur. Hard to say without seeing the problem in person.

First thing to try is to flood the derailleur and freehub/freewheel assembly with lubricant to flush out accumulated gunk.

zacster

Before you do even that, just check to see if there is tire thread or something else stringy stuck in there and try pulling it out. Then go to the flush. I had a fraying tire and it got caught there. On top of that I also overtightened the cassette when I changed it a few months ago and also had the problem. That was easy to fix.

Of course the fraying tire needed to be replaced.

Goldrush

Thanks for the tips. I put my spare rear wheel and rode a couple of miles without problems. Appears to be the rear hub of my ICAN Chinese carbon wheel. You get what you pay for.

cxwrench

Take the initiative and look a little closer to make sure it's not one of the things we posted about earlier. There could be something between the cassette/freehub and hub shell causing drag.

79pmooney

With the wheel off the bike, spin the freewheel/cassette backwards. It should go easily for several revolutions. If not, find the issue and fix it. 95% chance one of the issues stated above. (Doingit off the ibke separates FW/cassette issues from chain and other bike related issues. If slack persists, now you know where you don't have to look.

joeruge

Could be a couple of things going on here. The lag in applying power does sound like something going on with the freehub. But slack chain between the jockey pulley and the chain ring sounds to me like the tension spring on the jockey cage (don't know exactly what it's called) is not pulling the lower jockey wheel back to keep the lower part of the chain taught. Could be the spring or it could be lubrication on that pivot.

Goldrush

Just to let posters know what I determined. The pivot on the rear derailleur cage was hanging up not allowing it to take up slack. I gave it a soaking with PB Blaster and let it sit overnight before starting a few applications of chain lube. I've ridden a few hundred miles on my main wheel with no further problems.

Iride01 

I guess the people making your ICAN Chinese carbon wheel will probably say "we get what we sell to" <grin>
Since it doesn't sound like it was the issue.