Stranded by a broken shifter cable leading to a bike repair gone bad...considered my options and decided to call the wife.

38F and sunny this morning with rain forcast for the afternoon. So I took my main commuter, my 2015 Charge Plug which is not an e-bike despite the name.

Took the longer trail to trail route and 300 yards from the office the rear derailleur cable snapped. This is the third time in ten years...and the same break...inside the Shimano Claris integrated brake/shifter. I have changed shifter and brake cables in all my bikes except the two with integrated brake/shifters, the Charge Plug and now the Felt F65.

The first two times the derailleur cable snapped on the Plug I rode to the bike shop closest to my old job. Both times they changed it while I waited and charged me $20. At my current workplace, the closest bike shop is just half a mile...a ten minute walk, and I have been going there on and off for 32 years. They can usually turn around a minor repair same day, or next and at a reasonable price, although that has been going up quite a bit as of late as I'm sure it is everywhere.

I called when they opened and explained I snapped a Shimano Claris shifter cable and they said they were booked up 6 weeks out. They sell a lot of e-bikes now and maybe they just didn't want to take the time for a low profit repair...or maybe the young sounding tech who answered was just panicky about being busy.

The next nearest shop is the co-op which I considered calling, but first I checked youtube and saw that changing the shifter cable on this unit is not difficult at all. There's a Walmart a quarter mile from the office and the website said they had a cable replacement kit for $9.99 which includes 4 cables with dual heads to be used as brake or shifter cables, 4 housings, 8 ferrules and 4 crimp caps....not bad!

I knocked off 15 minutes early changed into my bike clothes then removed the old cable, then threaded the new cable. The youtube instructions said to put the shifter in the lowest gear. After threading the cable through everything I went to tighten it on the derailleur. But the derailleur was resting on the smallest cog. So I upshifted thinking I could then pull the cable taut and tighten it which to my thinking would require just minor adjustments to the derailleur. I think that was my mistake.

After tightening the cable to the derailleur I went to downshift but the lever jammed. I looked at the housing and the cable end was sticking out. The next few events were a blur, but the end result was that the metal stopper at the end of the shifter cable was lodged deep inside the brifter. I couldn't get it out...I didn't have all my tools...a needle nosed plies might work, but I didn't have one. I tried digging it out with a small flat head screwdriver I had in my desk, but that only got it so far.

If I lived in a flat state I might have ridden home, but just the slight hill between the original cable snap and the office was too steep for the small front small cog, small rear gear combo, and it is mostly uphill on the ride home.

So I called the wife. This weekend I will try to fix the dang thing...and if not I'll find a shop with a shorter wait, and if it costs too much to unstick the cable I will just buy a used unit and reinstall everything my self.

So frustrating! At least I have five other bikes to ride...two others with fenders and racks for commuting.