On a ride today my gear shifter stopped working. I couldn’t go to a bigger cog in the back. At first I tried to make another jump down to make it shift up again, but after 2 tries I realized something was amiss. Had to ride home in the third smallest cog which made some of the climbs challenging.
Is this something I can easily fix? I have tools but I am in Spain so I will have to do it myself. Normally there is some resistance when I try to shift gears, now nothing happens.
SRAM
First thing to do is check if it’s really the shifter, or a cable issue. Try pulling the cable by hand (bypassing the shifter) to see if it still shifts. If it does, then it’s likely an issue with the shifter itself, which can be hard to repair depending on what it is.
I am assuming this is a bar end shifter on your aero extensions (not brake/shift lever).
What might be happening is that the lever is loose on the shifter body. You can tighten that up using the screw that holds the body together (the big circular one on the side of the lever). You may have to fully remove the screw and realign the internal ring and then reassemble. All that is needed is an allen key (4mm I think).
Gear cable is probably only hanging on by a few strands.
As others have mentioned, we need to know what kind of shifter you are talking about. Did you try adjusting the barrels ( if your bike has them) to see if you can tighten it up a bit? Either way, replace the cable- it’s probably broken/frayed.
Ok so I took the shifter apart, piece by piece, and did the same to the one that works. I do not really understand how they work, which obviously is annoying, and I can’t see any difference between the “broken” one and the one that works - except that a little disc with a hole in the middle and 5 non symmetric heads aligned on the periphery seems to be inverted on the one that doesn’t work.
When I put them back together the one that worked still works. For the other one, the broken one, there are 3 down clicks left, but if I pull the shifter up, nothing happens. It is like it lacks a jack or something for the shifter to slide into and pull it backwards. I have tried to align it identically to how the functioning one is aligned, but no matter what I do, it won’t shift.
The gear system is SRAM red 11 spd. I can take the shifter apart at put up a photo of every piece if someone with more knowledge would be kind enough to help me.
The cable was replaced in August. I have never needed to replace that particular cable before. And if it is a cable problem, why does it still shift “the other way”?
Releasing cable tension is a much simpler function for the shifter.