Siegfried’s fitted with a 5-speed Sturmey Archer hub, and a thumb trigger shifter like this:
I’ve been riding Siegfried for about a month, and have always found that the gears are prone to step up – if you select first gear, it doesn’t take much of a nudge on the shifter for it to jump to second; if the bike’s parked in first or second, just turning the handlebars to the left is enough for it to skip up to third, or even fourth gear.
I’d had enough of this yesterday, and while I was in the lift (elevator) at the Southern end of the Tyne Pedestrian Tunnel, decided that the red tightening screw on the top of the shifter obviously needed . . . tightening.
So I fished a penny from my pocket, inserted it into the slot and twisted.
Big mistake – turns out that the red plastic ‘tightener’ is only a dust cover, and when you twist it, it pops out. And the screw underneath it was almost completely undone, so the whole shifter assembly did a reasonable impression of the clowns car at the circus – the one that spontaneously falls to pieces.
Fortunately I managed to grab hold of it and keep all the bits from disappearing. And I happened to have a multi-tool in the bottom of my briefcase (doesn’t everyone?), so once I got out of the lift, I could park the bike up and re-assemble the shifter.
As I said, that screw was pretty much out, so now I’ve done it up, the problems with the gear shifting seem to have been pretty much fixed.
And I wasn’t even late for the meeting I was riding to.
Do The Right Thing 
I love that bikes are, for the most part, mechanically simple.
I wouldn’t know how to do much of anything with a car, but I can identify the likely locations of annoying creaks, and fix 90% of things that go wrong myself.
and on the subject of the multi-tool, I’m not on the bike today, or carrying my usual bike luggage. But my courier bag has a specialized EMT mini in one of the pockets. Just in case.
should read;
“I wouldn’t know how to do much of anything with a car, but I can identify the likely locations of annoying creaks, and fix 90% of things that go wrong *with my bike* myself.
I had the same problem with my Pashley. The shop I bought it from is on the way to the grocery store, so I popped in and they adjusted it.
Never travel without a multi tool of some sort. More modern bikes get the Park MTB3 I also carry an ancient Leatherman PST My Raleigh Superbe does just fine with an adjustable wrench (spanner).
Bikes are so easy to fix on the fly if you have even the most basic of mechanical skills.
Aaron