Out on an afternoon forest ride in early April the familiar clicking sound as I went to change gears was absent, my ankle and shoe couldn’t seem to find the shifter button. No wonder – the button was MIA. How useful is a GUNI 36’er  on the trail without those little shifter buttons? Not very… ARGH!

I spent what was left of the afternoon walking the trail searching for the button, from approximately where I thought I had changed gears last to where I realized it was no longer there, quite a distance as it turned out. No luck. I headed home and emailed an order with Schlumpf for spare shifter buttons and matching crank nuts.

I blame myself really. I had been checking and tightening the crank nuts often due to the cranks refusing to settle snuggly in place on the hub. I guess the last time I put the shifter buttons on I didn’t tighten one side enough. It can be tricky sometimes to hold the shifter button in place, especially as the notches in the button wear along with the special tool that engages the notches and holds the buttons still. The buttons do take a beating during a ride, I’d probably come loose too.

I walked the section of trail several times in the following days, stubbornly determined to find the button as the replacements would take some time to arrive. Loosing stuff bugs me, especially loosing little things that mean you can’t use a big thing! As luck would have it I ended up finding the MIA button sitting off to the side of the trail which was extremely fortunate as the replacements didn’t arrive until weeks later, in early May…

Reading comments of other GUNI owners loosing a shifter button isn’t uncommon. I tighten mine up much more these days. It sure would be handy if the hub shipped with a spare pair of buttons.