Appreciation post: the old timer at my shop who got me to quit chasing every gear adjustment by ear
For my first two years I set derailleurs by sound and feel, crouching behind the stand and nudging the barrel adjuster until it "sounded right." Last month a retired mechanic named Ray came by the shop in Salem to pick up a wheel and watched me do it, then said, "You're tuning your ears, not the bike." He had me hang the bike, click through all 11 gears while watching the chain line from behind, and mark the high and low limits with a paint pen before touching cable tension. Takes me about 4 minutes now instead of 15, and I haven't had a ghost shift complaint since. Any of you still set limits by feel, or is the paint pen trick just a west coast thing?