Testing my neural plasticity

 Brains are neat.  They can do all kinds of nifty things, like operate heavy machinery and invent fart jokes, although the warning label says we're not supposed to do both at the same time.  Also, amazingly, even into their later years (for example the ripe old age of almost 48), they retain the ability to rewiring themselves to think in new ways, such as reworking habits learned through years and years of repetition.  Old brain, new trick, so to speak.  Brain scientists refer to this as neural plasticity, and I'm about to test mine.

Yesterday I messed up two of my bikes by switching the rear shifter to left side of the handlebars.  I know, horrible idea, but hear me out.  I'm a huge fan of reliability.  There's an old adage in racing, "To win, you must first finish."  Well, if I'm going to ride to events, I must first arrive, to start, to finish, to even contemplate the possibility of winning, so I need a bike that, more than anything, works.  This informs my parts selection, like cable operated brakes, and nothing-to-break thumb shifters.  During the waning years of my former life as a bike racer, I pledged, once I retired, I'd build a bare-bones completely rigid bike with thumbshifters.  Or, as I described it, I wanted only three things on my bike that could leak: the front and rear tubes, and me.  Thinking I'd ridden my last race, in the fall of 2003, I built that bike with my first 1x draintrain, for the simple reason that I simply didn't have the matching front shifter, so how's that for necessity being the mother of invention?  Well, the next spring, Jill and Chris Logan started the Root 66 series, and I ended up racing laps for another three seasons, and my last three New England titles.  With thumbshifters.

And I've been riding thumbshifters ever since, but with one twist (ironic pun intended).  Instead of the traditional top mount orientation, I've been switching the left and right shifters to allow for mounting under the handlebar.  Originally, it started on my commuter/errand/utility/beast-of-burden/ugly bike, but the ergonomics were so good, all my flat bar bikes were converted.  To address the swap from left to right, I switched to friction shifters, which are mechanically identical on both sides, allowing me to stay right/rear and left/front.  I'm pretty competent with a friction shifter, so for the riding I was doing, the periodic trimming wasn't an issue, and I even managed to win a six hour endurance event with this setup.  But for my upcoming two hour events against strong competition, yeah, I want index shifting.

I did pull apart a pair of shifters to test if I could swap the indexing guts to a left lever, but no go, the castings are different.  So here I am, my brain with 38 years experience that say the rear shifter is on the right, flipping the script.  This might be the only situation I'll ever say this: Thank goodness for plastic.  So far, so OK, I did my first test ride last night and didn't miss a single shift, although I was definitely thinking about it.  A LOT!  But with over a month to practice, I'm confident I can pass the test, and if not, I'll at least have the most important thing to pack for any race: a good excuse.

No, not a 3x1