May have finally licked a nagging problem

On our tandem!

It seems that every time we went on a ride the rear derailleur would come out of adjustment during the ride. We wouldn’t have to go more than ten miles before we needed to stop and make a minor adjustment. On the bike stand before a ride I would adjust the rear shifting until it was spot on. One issue, though, was that it was never perfect in all three chain rings. It would be close, but not perfect. Now the drive train is not a low end group or low end components either. We are using a Shimano Dura-Ace rear derailleur as well as Dura-Ace STI levers, a KMC chain as well as a SRAM Powerdome rear cluster.

So with much tinkering I noticed on one of our last rides that the inline cable adjusters I was using would compress and uncompress when shifting. With that visual cue I came to the conclusion that those cycles were loosening the adjuster and were the major cause of our problem. The adjusters we were using were Jagwire Rocket Adjusters pictured here:

Now I cannot be 100% certain since at the same time I decided to replace the shift cable (even though it only had a few hundred miles) as well as the cassette. We are now running a Shimano 6600 12-27T cassette. The Shimano does not have the missing teeth like the SRAM and since it is not hollow, it does seem to run quieter than the SRAM does.

Now that that issue is solved the remaining nit is that front shifts are a bit sluggish with the FSA chain rings. After a few other more important purchases I will look into replacing them with TA or Shimano triple chain rings.