Hi, all.
First time I have been on this forum for bike help (though I am on about 20 car forums).
Anyhow I have an old Nishiki touring bike (1982 vintage) that I am pretty attached to: In addition to riding to school and work over the many years, I've ridden it to all four corners of the US -- Seattle, LA, Key West, DC and all kinds of points in between on multiple coastal and cross-country tours -- guessing I've put between 15,000 and 18,000 miles on or maybe more (most recently I rode it fully loaded -- I'm old school, so no sag wagon for me -- from Ohio to DC via the Panhandle, Allegheny Passage and C&O Canal trails -- about 450ish miles). The only really upgrade was a wheel rebuild in 1983 with a Weinman concave on the rear wheel (done at REI in Redondo Beach, hasn't even been re-trued since then).
I'm getting too old to downtube shift (and want to do the Empire State Trail next year), so wanted to join the 21st century convert to it brake handle shifters (for the Ohio-DC ride, I finally turned in the cage pedals for SPD flats). Last year I picked up a Bianchi Hybrid and really like the index shifters but the geometry of the bike is not good for touring (steep fork rake and shortish wheelbase).
As I see it I have three options:
- Find 5x2 brake shifters;
- Use 7x2 brake shifter and try to keep track of where I am on the rear freewheel -- or modify if possible to stop after 5 click shifts)
- Upgrade the drivetrain to a 7x2 configuration.
Are there other options?
So far I have not found any 5x2 brake shifters, and the 7x2 drivetrain upgrade seems like a lot of work (spacers, re-dishing, dropout tweaking, etc.).
So wondering about a couple of things:
- Does anyone know where I might get 5x2 brake shifters?
- Is there a "narrow-ish" 7 speed freewheel that would be a plug-and-play with my current (Suntour) 5 speed freewheel?
- Is there a way to stop a 7 speed shift at the 5th click (and will that even work with a 5 speed setup)?