Banzai

It's fantastic, it's beautiful, it's amazing.

Oh wait...I can't ride it.

Get it home, but it on the stand to fine tune everything and swap the crank...and as I'm spinning through the gears the front (left) 105 shifter crunches and dies. Precisely 0 road miles on it.

The bike shop is 190 miles away.

I'm trying to deal with Shimano now for the warranty.

Prolly be a month before I get to ride my new bike. Frak.

Pharmr

well that sucks...what did you get anyway??

Banzai

Cannondale Six13.

It was a manufacturer special of some sort that the LBS told me about. '07 frames that C'dale was clearing out, with full 105, Ultegra RD, and Ksyrium Equipe wheels. All for $1650.

I hope Shimano works with me, because shipping back to the store so he can ship to Shimano so Shimano can ship to him so he can ship to me is just stupid.

redirekib

What exactly happened to the shifter and why can't you ride without a front shifter?

Did you remove the FD and or cable when swapping out the crank?

It just seems awfully coincidental.

Banzai

I get the bike home and swap the "race" double on it for a compact double on a different bike. Both bikes will be happier that way...

Move and adjust limit screws on FD, re-pull the cable, start spinning through gears. Downshifts (cable release) are extremely "clunky" in the shifter...lot's of push required before it goes CLUNK and releases the cable. Then it gets worse, then it quits moving in any direction.

Why not ride it anyway? Lets see...no lever, since I'm sending it in for warranty. No front brake, since there's no lever. Why wrap and ride a bike that's missing key pieces? Why spin in my small chainring with a "frozen" FD when I have functioning bikes to ride?

Granted, I'm back down to my cyclocross commuter and my '84 steel road bike...but that's where I was before. It just kills me to see my new toy hanging in the garage...and it kills me that this shifter crunched like that with exactly 0 road miles on it.

No...I'm not going to "rig" my broken and incomplete bike up for the sake of spinning around the block. That seems...a little dumb.

redirekib

If you had the cable out, it is possible to missthread it back through the shifter (done it). Also, too much cable tension causes the hard down shift you described. If you forced the FD up against the high limit this will definitely cause a very hard downshift and may break something in the shifter (don't know, never broken one like that) but I have seen the hard down shifts due to high cable tension.

Banzai

I've seen that too.

This isn't my first time on a repair stand. I've built a couple of bikes, and done the maintenance on most of my friends' bikes. (My work tends to be better than the LBS...hence why I went almost 200 miles away to a bike shop.)

I've done the setup on all my bikes, and they all work smoothly and flawlessly. I was extra careful in setting this up, because it's my new toy and the most expensive bike in my stable.

It's baffling and frustrating to me. I don't feel like I forced it against the high limit...I may have tightened the high limit down on it once as I was fine tuning the cage, but the shifter shouldn't be so delicate that this operation would permanently jack the inner workings.

My old 8 speed R500 brifters have survived moving across two bikes and 4 sets of handlebars, not to mention component upgrades...and the ensuing adjustments. They still work like new.

lechat

i'd buy a cheap left tiagra or sora shifter off ebay to use temporarily before i waited a month.