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Shifter worries

Old 11-27-22, 08:22 AM
  #26  
trailangel
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It's good to see CrossCountryWrench is back!
If my ride breaks down I call my mom and she comes and fixes it for me.
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Old 11-27-22, 08:39 AM
  #27  
rosefarts
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In my experience, well maintained shifters don’t up and die. They might get gradually worse and less precise. Usually fixed by a bottle of tri flow and a puddle on the floor.

Certainly nothing that won’t make it the 15 miles home in this scenario.

Theres a lot of good advice here about getting home if you break a cable. The best being the line about regular cable replacement.

I’d carry a fork or seatpost before a new shifter, if I was one to carry things that might break.
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Old 11-27-22, 09:02 AM
  #28  
BlazingPedals
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Variation of others' advice. The brifter is stuck in one gear. If it's high gear, just loosen the cable clamp at the derailleur, manually move the derailleur to an easier gear, pull the slack out of the cable and re-tighten.
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Old 11-27-22, 10:15 AM
  #29  
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Originally Posted by trailangel
It's good to see CrossCountryWrench is back!
If my ride breaks down I call my mom and she comes and fixes it for me.
Thanks if you're talking about me, but it's CX, not XC. Cyclocross, not Cross Country.
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Old 11-27-22, 02:07 PM
  #30  
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Originally Posted by cxwrench
You're kidding, right? You're more likely to break a chain, you going to carry a spare one of those too?
I'm pretty sure he was joking, but who knows? I actually knew some mountain bikers who carried a spare RD with them.
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Old 11-27-22, 02:16 PM
  #31  
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Originally Posted by frogman
So here you are 15 miles away from home, on a trail nowhere near any roadways on your gravel bike and your brifters crap out. How do you make field adjustments to lock them up to stay at least in a low gear so you can pedal back home ? That is my fear with the Shimano 10 speed
brake shifters. I had Shimano bar end shifters mounted up on the handlebar with Paul Thunbie mounts earlier and with them I could switch to friction shifting if the indexing crapped out, which was nice, but now I am spoiled with the Shimano brifters.
While a possibility, STI shifters crapping out doesn't happen that often. What happens more often on never STI shifters is that they like to eat cables inside the shifter, the cable frays, eventually breaks and you lose shifting. The easiest remedy here is to change your rear shifter cable at least every 2000 miles and depending on how much you shift, maybe more often. However, if your are caught out far when this happens, the best thing to do is turn the high limit screw on your RD all the way in. That will get you up to one of the middle cogs and unless you have mountains to climb on your way home, this solution should get you home.

However, you say your shifters are 10-speed, so I am assuming your shift housings come straight out of the shifter and are exposed rather than tucked under the bar tape. These older type of STI shifters are less likely to eat cables, but it does eventually happen after many thousands of miles.
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Old 11-27-22, 02:17 PM
  #32  
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Originally Posted by cxwrench
As happens all the time this should've been posted in 'bicycle mechanics' not GD but I wouldn't have seen it as I'm still banned from that section.
All the more reason we should ask mechanical questions here. Not sure what's up with giving you a ban over there and not otherwise. Is there a Bike Forums parole officer you can talk to and work this out?
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Old 11-27-22, 02:33 PM
  #33  
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I like cxwrench's solution. But if the cable fails at the shifter end or the cable is simply too frayed to be run into the RD, that's not going to work. (Well maybe if you brought a shop quality cable cutter.) I remember the old SunTours where I always managed to screw the limit screw in far enough to nearly center the RD over the freewheel. That always seemed to me something that should be a design requirement but I'm guessing that has gone by the wayside. The tie-off at the WB cage, now that I like. Do that with the barrel adjust at the RD screwed all the way in and the cable pulled tight to the desired cog. Back out the barrel adjust as your "knot" tightens and settles in.
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Old 11-27-22, 03:05 PM
  #34  
georges1
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the altus a10 shifters on my 1992 giant tourer must have many miles on them but never had a mishappening with them, idem with my xt-780-t shifters which are on all of my mountain bikes which have already 6 years ago and not as much as miles on it but still.As for my road bikes, they all have down tube shifting.
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Old 11-27-22, 03:23 PM
  #35  
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Shorten the chain and wrap it around a ridable gear combo, bypassing the derailleur. The chain tension will probably be less than great, but for the rest of your life you can insufferably flex that you ride a singlespeed.
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Old 11-27-22, 04:00 PM
  #36  
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Originally Posted by Lombard
All the more reason we should ask mechanical questions here. Not sure what's up with giving you a ban over there and not otherwise. Is there a Bike Forums parole officer you can talk to and work this out?
You can try but they seem to be on quite the power trip lording over their forum. Maybe they're waiting for Dec 1...or maybe the new year. I haven't heard anything.
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Old 11-27-22, 04:09 PM
  #37  
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Originally Posted by cxwrench
You can try but they seem to be on quite the power trip lording over their forum. Maybe they're waiting for Dec 1...or maybe the new year. I haven't heard anything.
Can we start a petition, or will that get all signatories banned?
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Old 11-27-22, 04:15 PM
  #38  
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Originally Posted by Koyote
Can we start a petition, or will that get all signatories banned?
That would be kinda funny. They seem to think I'm such a bad guy but all I've seen is support from you all. The mods think they're protecting everyone from me but all I've seen is people wanting me back. Who knows?
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Old 11-27-22, 04:25 PM
  #39  
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Originally Posted by Koyote
Can we start a petition, or will that get all signatories banned?
Originally Posted by cxwrench
That would be kinda funny. They seem to think I'm such a bad guy but all I've seen is support from you all. The mods think they're protecting everyone from me but all I've seen is people wanting me back. Who knows?
Done. Anyone who agrees that you should be let back into the mechanics subforum can just go over there and add to the thread I just started. Maybe I’ll see you in purgatory.
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Old 11-27-22, 04:26 PM
  #40  
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Originally Posted by Koyote
Done. Anyone who agrees that you should be let back into the mechanics subforum can just go over there and add to the thread I just started. Maybe I’ll see you in purgatory.
Thanks man!
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Old 11-27-22, 04:41 PM
  #41  
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Originally Posted by cxwrench
You can try but they seem to be on quite the power trip lording over their forum. Maybe they're waiting for Dec 1...or maybe the new year. I haven't heard anything.
I think it's kind of weird that they let you back on the forum in general but still have you banned from one subforum. Are you only capable of being abusive on one subforum?

Last edited by Lombard; 11-27-22 at 04:47 PM.
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Old 11-27-22, 08:11 PM
  #42  
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Originally Posted by lombard
are you only capable of being abusive direct on one subforum?
fify.
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Old 11-27-22, 08:13 PM
  #43  
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Originally Posted by Rogerogeroge
fify.
I was using "abusive" sarcastically, hence the rolling eyes emoji.
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Old 11-27-22, 08:32 PM
  #44  
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Originally Posted by cxwrench
Thanks man!
Well, they killed that pretty quickly.
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Old 11-27-22, 08:38 PM
  #45  
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Originally Posted by Koyote
Well, they killed that pretty quickly.
Why am I not surprised at all?
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Old 11-27-22, 08:51 PM
  #46  
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Originally Posted by Koyote
Well, they killed that pretty quickly.
Did you include a poll?
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Old 11-27-22, 10:43 PM
  #47  
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I had a SRAM X0 shifter fail while riding the tandem on the Isle of Skye. Well maintained. Not the cable. The ratchet wouldn't move to a larger rear sprocket. Probably not engineered to work with that much cable.

I could manually move the derailleur to the biggest gear and take off. We had ridden the route several times, so I shifted up to a gear we could pull up the hills before the next stop. It was a PITA, but we did catch a train back to Glasgow.

Last edited by DangerousDanR; 11-27-22 at 10:51 PM. Reason: Using phone...
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Old 11-28-22, 06:44 AM
  #48  
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Originally Posted by Koyote
Well, they killed that pretty quickly.
Yikes!
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Old 11-29-22, 09:37 AM
  #49  
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Originally Posted by cxwrench
Replace the cables/housing once a year like you'd change the oil in your car...it's preventative maintenance.
Nobody actually does this do they? I have an 8 year old bike and 4 year old bike and haven't touched the cables on them yet.
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Old 11-29-22, 09:41 AM
  #50  
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Originally Posted by cxwrench
You can try but they seem to be on quite the power trip lording over their forum. Maybe they're waiting for Dec 1...or maybe the new year. I haven't heard anything.
I've found the mods here to be a little heavy handed. They need to lighten up a bit.
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