My ex-wife is following my path into triathlon and just bought her first tri bike on Ebay… not sure what year but it’s an immaculate tequila sunrise-colored Cannondale Multisport 2000 with a quill stem… maybe a year 2000?. I was over at her house helping her husband put it together and (other than it being really clean and a great deal for $600) I noticed two odd things:
The bar-end shifters were at the end of the cowhorns which had the Shimano aero-style brakes (I did tinypic.com but it didn’t resize, sorry!):
Have you ever seen that shifter setup? (Seems sorta interesting.)
Also, the bar-end shifter skipped gears 3-5 and 8.
I took the shifter apart but can’t find where the indent interface is… can that part be taken apart?
Never seen that set-up, but I’d guess the drive train just needs to be tuned up to get rid of the gear skipping. If that won’t do it, it may be something internal to the shifters.
I think it’s great that you have such a positive relationship with the ex. That is indeed an odd set-up with the shifters on the cowhorns. i would move them to the aero-bars. This might take a slightly longer cable. There is really nothing user-serviceable inside a bar-end shifter. Sounds like it is probably in need of cleaning and adjustment. if the shifter is really bad, they have a friction option.
You once loved her, and now you are okay helping another man who sleeps with her. I find that more strange than the gear shifting setup.
Yeah… a unique concept… it’s called “moving on…”
Never seen that set-up, but I’d guess the drive train just needs to be tuned up to get rid of the gear skipping. If that won’t do it, it may be something internal to the shifters.
It’s something internal in the shifters for sure… it doesn’t index in those gears… I’m just wondering what’s inside the shifters or what you can do…
Well if you’re sure it’s internal, you can’t really go wrong taking them apart to take a look.
I took out the bolt and screw and the flat spacer-thingy but the shift lever and it’s internals with the SIS mechanism doesn’t appear to come apart. Does it?
That was fairly common back in the cowhorn “funny bike” days, for the rt shifter only. The left was still on the down tube. Now with aerobars not much advantage doing it that way.
I believe I know the problem you are having (same thing happened to me). The shifters have both 8 and 9-speed indexing at opposite ends of the range. Basically something like 9-9-9-9-9-9-9-9-9/8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8. You’re in the middle of the range so you’re getting very bad shifting at one point (sound like 3-5) and iffy shifting above or below this point.
You need to “reset” the SIS shifting. If it’s a 9-speed system, shift the level as far forward as possible (forward being the direction of the kink in the shifter). Remove and re-set the shifter in the housing if necessary to make sure you shifted to the limit (this is key!). This will put the shifter in the proper indexing for 9-speed starting with the smallest cog on the cassette. For 8-speed, you will want to shift the lever back and you’ll be in the largest cog on the cassette.
Hope this makes sense. PM me if you have any questions or problems.
