Hi. This is my second Brompton, so I know how it’s supposed to work. This shifter has been shifty (pun) for the 6 months I’ve had it, already needing some adjustments in the past.
Once again recently, I needed to put more and more force into the shifter to go from 3 to 2. In the past the bike shop set it right with the cable.
This time I started adjusting the cable myself, and whatever I do, I can’t get the shifter to click and stay in 2.
I’ve done plenty of tests, the cable tension is set right. When I hold the shifter into position 2, the bike rides in that gear, but it goes back to 3 once I let go. If I increase the tension even more, the hub goes into gear 2, while showing 3 on the shifter, and still it doesn’t click. So the tension is not the issue.
I’ve tried all I can. Is my shifter defective? If I completely disconnect the hub chain, I can get the shifter to click. But once the chain is connected again, no success.
Has anybody experienced this kind of issue before?
by JorisDM
3 Comments
It’s the shifter. They’re rubbish. I really don’t know how a company that relies on designing their own parts could have come up with such a piece of crap. I’m a bike mechanic and I’ve seen so many of them fail.
The good news is that they’re cheap and easily available, so just buy a new one.
This is probably a dumb question, and mine is an older Brompton with the “rabbit ear” shifter:
Are you adjusting at the shifter side, or with the knurled nut at the end of the little chain coming out of the hub?
I was under the impression from my own shifter adjustments, that adjusting the cable itself is for coarse adjustments (I’ve never had to touch the cable itself), but the little kurled shaft and nut is where you fine tune the indicator chain’s position by viewing through that hole in the large axle nut.
As someone else said, it could just be the shifter, but fine-tuning the knurled adjustment shaft and nut have solved alot of odd shifting behaviors for me.
That fucker needs cleaned