Inisfallen

The shifter (Shimano Revo-Shift, 7 speed) on my Giant Halfway has pretty much given up the ghost. The derailler (Shimano Sora) is fine.

Is there any reason at all I can't get rid of it and replace it with an old-fashioned stem shifter (friction shifter)? Seems simpler and more durable.

fietsbob

permission cleared to try it.. how about a friction thumb shifter? revo = grip shifter right?

friction just means learning how far to move the lever to find the next gear.

lever needs to pull enough cable to span the distance between # 1 & # 7.. pulling on the read mech..

Inisfallen

I'm old. That's really not a problem.

Yeah, that's the thing. All the old stem shifters I see on eBay were made for 5-speeds. On the other hand, the cogs were probably further apart on those old freewheels. It's the total width of the gear cluster that should matter, right? I'll see if I can get a look at an old 5-speed to measure.

Inisfallen

Update:

It's fixed. I replaced the broken Shimano Revo-Shift grip shifter with a Falcon thumb shifter.

I had to wait forever to get the part -- seems like everyone was back-ordered. But it finally showed up. It's cheap, it works, and it took all of ten minutes to install it and fine-tune it.

No indexing, but who cares? It works perfectly.