The rear shift cable snapped on my 2013 Trek 1.5 road bike recently. Replacing the shift cable is generally an easy repair, but I managed to get it jammed into the shift lever. While trying to make this work, I broke off the gear indicator lever. My first thought was just to replace the shift lever, but that’s proved more difficult than I expected. I had been planning on replacing this bike with a higher-quality road bike soon, but I would strongly prefer to keep this one going through this year.
My bike has Tiagra 10-speed 4600 components, which are long discontinued. Fortunately, Shimano components are generally compatible across series, except that Tiagra 4600 and 4700 are not compatible, because they use different cable-pull ratios. But I still have a few options, and I feel lost among them:
1. Just take bike into my local shop, because someone who knows what they’re doing could take apart the shifter and just fix it. The drawback to this is that if they can’t fix this part, I’m paying for both the replacement part(s) and labor. More importantly, because of the huge demand for biking and keeping their staff safe during COVID, there are long delays in service.
2. Buy a replacement (used or new) Tiagra 4600 shifter on EBay or Aliexpress.
Drawback: used equipment likely has more wear and tear. Shipping from China is slow and leaves my bike out of commission. Pro: the easiest and most straightforward fix.
3. Buy a replacement compatible 3rd party Microshift R10 shifter. Pro: inexpensive, arrives quickly, least work. Cons: the few reviews I’ve seen indicate that the Microshift gear isn’t quite up to the same quality as the Shimano gear.
4. Buy a set of
105 5700 shifters. More work to install (because they route the shift cable under the bar tape, I’d definitely want to replace both at once.) Doesn’t require replacing any other mechanical equipment, because they’re compatible with the rest of the equipment on not bike, but is not cheap (the best I seem to find are around $200 for a pair).
5. Buy Tiagra 4700 shifters and derailleurs. These seem to be discontinued at most bike shops and I’d have to go to Aliexpress to get cheaply (and wait). If I’m investing in this bike, this at least refreshes some components at around the same price as just the 10-speed 105 shifters.
6. Invest significant money into this bike and get new wheels and an 11-speed 105 7000 groupset. This has the advantage of actually improving my bike at more cost. Is it worth investing this much money into an unremarkable 7-year old aluminum bike or am I better off doing a cheap fix and saving up my money to just invest in a new bike?