I have a 3 speed

Ok its supposed to be a 21 speed mountain bike but I continue to struggle to get the trigger shifter to work, this is a $5 Deore XT shift unit I picked up at Bike works thinking I could hot swap it in and be on my way but no such luck so far.

And this is the stock Deore LX that came with the bike that I could not get to work despite watching and following a couple different videos.  In theory these Trigger shifters mostly stop working because the pawls get stiff with old grease and lose their snap and then you lose your ability to shift.  You solve this by cleaning up the pawl area with something like Brakleen and work the pawl until it gets its snap back.  Either I am missing a pawl somewhere or there is a different issue.  I haven't totally given up on the trigger shifter(s) but I am close.

My next step, if the trigger shifters won't work is to use the inexpensive thumb friction shifter I dug out of the parts bin, hasn't been used that I can see.  I can mount this without having to remove the current shifter, it would look a bit of a kludge but it would be perfectly functional and should go through all 7 gears in friction mode.  I could buy a XT unit off Ebay that would look the part and is advertised as functional put that is $35 plus tax and I would rather not sink more $$$ into the bike right now.

Another option would be to push my chips all in; strip the current shifters, brake levers, grips and bar ends off the bars and replace them with some nice Ergon grips, a set of SunTour thumbies I picked up and some basic mtb brake levers I have in the parts bin.   Then  I would also slap on the city tires I picked up last month.  And I could get a basic bell cable and housing set to wire it all up.  The draw back is I am not sure I could bring in enough $$$ from selling the bike to justify all those nice parts. but it would help move the RH on out of the apartment.  I really don't want to go underwater on the RH and those parts have value of their own if I don't use them here.

Since I had no shifting I removed the shift cable, I have a new one on deck for whatever solution I go with, but that of course leaves me with the aforementioned 3 speed.

0 gears on the right

3 gears on the left

After a decent spring my riding started falling off in June due to first illness and then one thing and another,  I have decided in August I am going to just try to ride and not worry about distance just to get back into the habit.  As noted last weekend I rode the HD, Moto_GT and Cresta GT.  This week I took the Trek 520 out of mothballs and rode it on a short jaunt to the happy hour at the local Pizza Joint.

I enjoyed it so much I did it again tonight on the 3 speed.  That is all my ride-able bikes except the Allez which I am trying to sell so no casual rides for it.

hmm Pizza

One drawback to removing the shift cable is that without any cable tension the chain comes to rest on the smallest cog so even in the small ring up front its not much of a climber as I found out huffing and puffing up the slight incline to get back home, I got there but in its current configuration its definitely a flat bike path bike.

Ride. Gears are your friend, Smile there's Pizza & beer. Repeat.