Horrible hack of the day
I had a bicycle, an ebayed pair of used brifters, the older 9-speed cassette from the mlcm, and a pair of equally-worn chains from the same source. But what I didn’t have was a pair of downtube cable stops – I had a right side cable stop, but when I won that auction the seller sent me two right-hand stops instead of a right and a left.
So, after a couple of days wait to see if the seller would quickly send me the left cable stop, I snapped and made an unnatural hybrid bike with a friction-shifting front derailer and an indexed rear. Which, amazingly, actually works.
When I sell off the old rear derailer, the brake levers, and the downtube (Rivendell Silver) shifters I should have enough money to buy two more 9-speed chains and an econocassette, and then I’ll have an unnatural hybrid that doesn’t do chain-jumping when I shift to the 14t and 12t gears.