Hey, look, Richard K-Farb Sachs is making gravel bikes now! View this post on Instagram Nice color, somebody has good taste. IF I GOT IT Id choose something similar.Of course some people think you need suspension to ride on GRVL, and despite being both literally and figuratively rigid insofar as my approach to bicycles is concerned, at the moment I am in the odd position of having not onebut two dual-suspension test-cycles:Both of which I rode this past weekend:Both rides were quite enjoyable too, though as I rode the latter bike I noticed a problem with the rear brake lever. See that silver pressed-in thingy that the brake lever pivots on?Im talking about this thingy:Well, at one point I noticed it was sticking out, and while I was able to push it back in, eventually after enough lever usage it would just wiggle its way out again. Fortunately I didnt have to end my ride early (I just kept popping it back in with my index finger Whac-A-Mole style every once in awhile), though when I got home and attempted to fix it I just wound up taking it further apart, so I ended up taking the whole thing off:No doubt with a little time and patience I could reassemble it, but I have a limited supply of both, and I confess it occurred to me that in the same amount of time I could just pack up the bike, send it back to Classic Cycle, and be done with it. However, the truth is Im still enjoying the bike, and it comes in very handy for throwing on top of THE CAR THAT I OWN when I find myself in these increasingly common situations where Im driving a kid somewhere and I need to wait around for a couple hours. Plus, isnt failing to repair the bike contrary to my mission as the Classic Cycle Old Crap Test Pilot? Isnt this whole thing about living with these bikes that the industry told us 20 years ago we had to buy and subsequently abandoned, and understanding what it takes to keep them running smoothly? Granted, I just made that up, but having just typed it I sure do like the sound of it.Fortunately, being an antique, the GT does not use dick breaks, so simply replacing the brake lever with a spare would seem like an obvious and easy solution for a lazy test pilot. Ordinarily thats exactly what Id do, but youll note the brake lever and the shifter are an integrated unit, so that wasnt going to work unless I replaced the shifter too. It then occurred to me this would be a good excuse to get a cheap, modern 1x drivetrain like Microshifts Advent X:However, not only would I have to, you know, pay for that, but it was also something of a cop-out and therefore contrary to the spirit of the OCTP exercise as described above:More importantly, see that Front Derailleur Stub (FDS)?Its ugly enough with a front derailleur on it. Now imagine it all by itself. I mean sure, I can live with some unused cable stops, but a naked FDS would drive me absolutely insane.So I ran through my mental inventory of shifters already in my possession that might work. As every retrogrouch knows, any shifting dilemma is easily solved with friction, but even I couldnt bring myself to use Silver2s in thumby mode on this bike. For three seconds I also thought about doing a drop bar conversion, but then I slapped myself across the face. This must have shaken something loose, because I then remembered I had these:You can ignore the front derailleur, thats from when I was thinking about giving the Jones the double-chainring-and-thumbshifter treatment. But I do like how this configuration resembles a surprised face, and it makes me think that Shimano should have had a helpful character named Thumby to compete with Microsofts Clippy:Anyway, as every bike dork of a certain age knows, Shimano 7-speed thumbshifters like these have an extra detent that allows them to work with an 8-speed drivetrain, which is what the GT has. This seemed like an ideal solution, since it was retrogroughy, but not absurdly so, plus if I put these shifters to work on the GT that would finally remove the temptation to molest the Jones. So on they went:The whole operation went quickly and smoothly:And a quick test ride around the neighborhood indicated everything was working:Which I confirmed with a proper ride the very next day:Obsolescence? I thumb my nose and my shifters at thee!