FixMeUp! Instructions (continued)

Other Features

Selection display

There's no version of FixMeUp! available that supports selecting gears

In all but the html version of FixMeUp! you can use the mouse to select a gear. When you have selected a gear, it will be drawn surrounded by a black rectangle.

If you click on a spot where several gears overlap, FixMeUp! will cycle the selection through each of them in turn.

Every version of FixMeUp! has a way of displaying extra information about the currently selected gear. In the Java versions there's an area of the display set aside for this. In the Mac and Windows versions you can bring up dialogs with this information, either by double-clicking on the gear or by choosing the appropriate menu item.

Cadence setting

The HTML version of FixMeUp! doesn't support cadence

When FixMeUp! displays information about the selected gear it includes your speed in that gear at minimum and maximum cadence. You can change the minimum and maximum cadence values if you like.

Tire/wheel size

In choosing where to put each gear in the chart, FixMeUp! calculates gear inches using the formula ring_teeth * wheel_diameter / cog_teeth. The value for wheel_diameter is set for a 23mm 700c tire by default, but you can set the value to correspond to the wheels and tires you use on your bike.

Highlight area size

The light blue column in the middle of the FixMeUp! display indicates what gears will fit with the chainstay shown. The default value (for most versions, anyway) is for vertical dropouts. The other interesting setting shows the increased selection of gears available with a Fixed Innovations axle.

You can also choose to turn the highlight area off, or to set it to show what's available with horizontal dropouts. Unless you have a very large monitor, this last setting will highlight your entire screen -- serving to point out that cyclists with horizontal dropouts don't need FixMeUp! at all.

Stretch

Using chainstretch to shift the gears that will fit your frame is an advanced topic covered by its very own page. Each version of FixMeUp! has a field in which you tell it how much stretch your chain has. Units are in inches over a 12-link length of chain, and the range of legal values is from 0.00" (for a brand new chain) up to 0.125" (after which you ought to throw the chain away before it damages your drivetrain further.)

Half-link

Half-links, in the track world of 1/8-inch chains, are nifty little chain links whose plates are neither outer nor inner but instead bend inward so that they can mate with outer plates on one end and with inner on the other. The result is that your chain can be something-and-a-half inches long -- which for our purposes doubles the number of gears on the chart.

While I've never used a half-link on a 3/32 (derailleur) chain, several riders have reported that they are available. Here's one source. If you know of others, please let me know!