Rats, Another Breakdown

TTT (Today's Thrilling Tracking)

We just spent the weekend AGAIN in the RV, this time in my old hometown of Grants, NM, for my OOFHSR (Official Old Fart High School Reunion), 50th to be exact.  Who knew any of us would last this long?  I count 179 of us in the 1965 yearbook and only 44 showed up for this reunion.  Close to half of us have already assumed room temperature but that still seems like paltry attendance:  44 out of 90-something.
And most of us were unrecognizable!  How did this happen?  A bunch of old folks who can't recognize each other, often even after squinting closely at the name tags.  It was still fun, though.  As the crowd thins out from attrition we seem to forget old cliques and just enjoy swapping stories and telling lies.  Jacque and I arrived safely home Sunday afternoon.
Tinkerbell and I saddled up again for a short ride today, Monday,  just to keep the blood warmed up and circulating. AND in hopes of living long enough for another reunion :O)
We only rode up to the Post Office today, since that is a good aerobic climb, builds character, and puts hair on the chest, so to speak.
Having wasted the earlier, cooler, parts of the day going to Albuquerque and back, retrieving a loaned trailer and handcart from a friend's house down the road, etc, it was well into the afternoon by the  time we got going.
As I downshifted, huffing and puffing, toward the top of the hill just a couple hundred yards shy of the desired Post Office target, my right hand shifter gave out a loud CLICK and a muffled THUNK and I knew something was wrong, again.  Bicycles seem to be in some respects just like RV's:  Something is ALWAYS breaking or failing.  In the case of bicycles, however, the cost of repairing the damage is usually less than $100, while for the RV a repair seldom fails to top the Kilobuck mark.
After limping to the Post Office, getting the mail, and cooling off, I took a closer look.  I suspected the shifter cable had separated, as it has many times before, but NO.  This time the cable seemed to be intact but the Suntour shift lever, the big one on the right for the derailleur on the rear, had broken completely off.  The short lever for upshifting was still intact and worked but..... essentially I was now stuck with 3 (THREE) gears:  the ones on the front rings.  If I shifted the rear at all, it only went into stiffer gears WITHOUT the ability to shift back.  Thus I limped home.
Of course, after looking through my pile of donor bike frames and parts, I find I have nothing similar to repair or replace it with.  An hour or so of searching online reveals this particular Suntour X-press shifter is hopelessly out of date and almost totally unavailable, new or used.  Now I'm back to digging through the bike boneyard behind the shed and hoping I can make one of the other old goofy shifters work..... stay tuned.  I'll go try Two Wheel Drive in Albuquerque and hope they can help me out when Amazon and Ebay have failed.
Weather:  Really windy and gusty, and warm.  Thus even though the wind slowed me down it also COOLED me down.

Ride Started: 1:24 PM    Ride Ended:  3:03 PM
Beginning Battery Voltage:   14.3   Ending Voltage: 13.2  Lowest:  12.7 (Solar Panel seems to work)
Lowest Temp  71 F      Highest Temp:  91 F 
Stats from the GPS:    Total Miles:  5.54
Overall average speed            Moving Avg               Max Speed
  3.3 MPH                              6.9 MPH                  27.6 MPH
Total Trip time                       Moving Time             Stopped Time
1 hour 40 mins                      48 minutess                52  minutes