I seem to be blessed with excessive amounts of negative “Luck o the Irish” (I’ll pause while those that need to have a quick Google for the phrase).
First world problems beset me, before real ones made an appearance. Just a few miles into the ride my headset announced it would be shutting down soon, then nagged me relentlessly, especially when I was trying to hear a key point, just as I was getting ready for the next program in my list –
and managed to get all the way into the first line, when silence fell!
Then a few miles further the real problem happened, I finished climbing the steepest hill on the route and went to change gear – only to find that the control was locked solid. So now instead of an eighteen gear cycle I had three at best. This can be summarized as uphill – ‘Phew’, ‘Crikey’ & ‘No Way’ and downhill as ‘I think the chain has fallen off’, ‘I’m sure it has’ and ‘I guess I’ll find out when I run out of downhill’.
Eventually I return home, open up the shifter and find the wee piece of metal inside has come loose,
https://www.instagram.com/p/BTzolZNjhod/
so I fix this ready for the next trip.
I start riding only to have it lock up again, so I return and repair it – again, this time I get a good distance away before it goes – again (think ‘grrr‘ in very large capitals), but this time does not lock up. No – it goes for the opposite, so will not stay in place, instead slowly creeping back to the lowest setting. I complete the ride holding the gears in place.
Time for new shifters! I order a cheap set from Amazon and they arrive after a few days. I remove the old, lubricate the cable sleeves (you just get the actual cable in the cheap set) and fit them. Now I just have to tune the gears and try again.