PTW

Hi All, long time no post. Hope you are all well.

I've always wondered whether it's "me or them" when it comes to gears. I've never been able to get the things to work reliably, you know, one click one gear. As if.

However, the front changer on my touring bike has been pretty bad for a while, so much so that I have had more luck pulling the cable away from the downtube than actually using the lever.

In desperation (and it takes me quite a few years to get desperate) I resorted to taking the whole lever off the handlebars, and following the video advice to squirt it full of WD40 and work the Dickens out of it in a last ditch bid to free whatever mechanical marvels lie within. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the advice is NOT to take STi levers apart. It's like taking apart a radio.

This had absolutely no effect, so in total frustration I actually threw the completely worthless 12 year old lump of junk at the floor. Call me emotional, but it worked. All of a sudden I could click it back and forth through the WHOLE range of motion its supposed to have, not three quarters of it. For the first time in years I stood a chance of having three (yes, three) chain rings. I could barely contain my excitement.

Why didn't someone tell me this before? It's so easy. Why waste all those hours going through the utterly futile task of adjusting limit screws, lubricating and replacing gear cables and bruising your finger tips moving cable adjusters back and forth?
Such things are mere distractions. What's needed is genuine violence.

I'd like to thank Donald Trump's calm and intelligent leadership for providing me with the inspiration for this innovative approach.

Of course when I put it back on the bike it only survived two minutes until its plastic casing snapped in two, and now it can't even be used as a brake lever. Whatever genuine problems it has actually got have now manifested themselves terminally.

Therefore, as regards the ultimate question of whether it's "me or them", I'm still not entirely certain. It's possible that STi levers are finicky, fragile, unreliable, and have no business being on a bike. Or is it just that I don't know how to look after them?

All I CAN say is that if I were you I probably wouldn't ask me to work on your bike.

It all reminds me of our first television set. I'd run home from school all eager to watch 'Stingray' only to find the 'Redifusion' TV on the blink but a sharp slap of my mother's hand on the right hand side of the TV would sort it.

Hi Alf. It's a pity your mother wasn't around to fix my lever. She would have thrown it at just the right angle. I don't have her knack for it.