April 24th: Overpriced shifters, Under-priced Derailleurs
Day 193
While western tourists are sucking down beers at mid day, surfing and laying by the pool, I got to work finishing up the maintenance on the trikes.
Cher has been wrestling with her shifters, sometimes having to use both hands to get it to shift. She has been stoic in dealing with her shifters and even suggested that she could just go with 7 gears since that all her derailleur would reach to with the current set up, and not use the two highest gears. However, having unreliable components compounds all the other day to day stresses on the road. Instead of returning the shifters, I went in search of a rear derailleur. A little research showed that Shimano rear derailleurs use a 2:1 ratio. I returned to Build a Bike, and found a Shimano Acera 9-speed derailleur from 2012 for10 USD, half the price on Amazon. It is the cheaper model but it works well. With regular maintenance it should last for the next year and longer. We will mail the extra parts back to Cher’s parents in China and I will use them to build another bike with horizontal handlebars.
In the end I replaced both of Cher’s shifter cable housings and my own fraying cables, both front and back. Both trikes are now shifting smoothly. I spent more than I wanted to, but our trikes are our sole source of transportation for the next year. More importantly as my high school Latin teacher used to remind us, if mama bear ain’t happy than neither is pappa bear. Thanks Mr. Kuprion.