Wife and I recently started cycling and we picked up a pair of used road bikes from the 1980's. Our thinking is we wanted to see if we enjoyed this kind of riding, and if we did-we'd look at some new models for Christmas this year.

Patty's bike has a problem with its gear shifting. These bikes have the "Downtube shifters" type setup for changing gears. She went out for a ride the other day and noticed that even though she was moving the lever to change gears-nothing was happening. I looked at it and tested the full range of movement...not forcefully mind you...and now the right side lever will not move at all.

Does anyone have an idea of:

1) What caused this?

2) How we fix it?

Thanks in advance!

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Bill in Dayton