Originally Posted by
daijoubu2k8
Pull the cable if you can and then tie a knot in it. You can mess with the cable clamp on the RD to keep it aligned in the gear you like for the ride home. You could also use the limit screws on the RD, but then you'd have to fix them when you put the new cable in.
I rigged it b4 I saw your idea, but thanks for the tip! What I did seems to have worked pretty well. I pulled the cable out from the shifter and got the excess length tied up/wrapped around things it won't interfere w/ on the top tube. I didn't have my trash inner tube w/ me to fashion the solution I originally had in mind, but I got some grippy cloth tape from one of the maintenance guys, wrapped it around the top tube closer to the saddle, pulled the cable tight to put it in the gear I wanted, taped it again and zip tied it as tight as I could. I did this in two spots.
I just made a 3 mile round trip for a lunch date w/ my wife and it did a good job keeping the rear on the 4th cog out of 7. A couple times, it jumed down to the 5th, but I was able to pull on the exposed cable closer to the stem to tighten it back up and force it back into 4th when needed. I think I could probably do a reasonably good job shifting up or down a couple gears each way, too. :-)
I'll be picking up replacement cable on the way home this evening... hopefully I'll find time to replace the cable this weekend.