grinding of teeth

My old bicycle was originally put together sometime around 1990ish and whilst indexed gearing was available back then it certainly wasn't standard for the likes of me. The gear-adjusting sticks were mounted on the downtube and whilst the rear changer had clicky-steps they were impossible to correctly align so I had to change gears just by turning the levers the appropriate amount. It was a slight pain to always have to let go of the handlebars to shift but it worked perfectly well, even after I moved up here and had to change gears and avoid death-by-bus at the same time. If my gear cables got a bit stretched the finely-adjustable nature of the lever system meant that it was simple to accommodate minute changes to stop the chain clanking or the gears skipping. The chainring lasted as long as the bicycle and the freewheel was only replaced with the rear changer when the latter's mount gave way and jumped into the spokes, destroying the changer and wheel at once. Currentbike has the mild convenience of gear-indexing but it's only convenient when it works. There is no friction-only mode for when the cables stretch or the teeth get worn and gears start slipping both up and down at inconvenient moments. Despite adjustments I still have to sit with my hand on the lever to minimise slipping in some gears and the window of smooth operation in which the chain doesn't find something to rattle on is decreasing. At this point I should probably say that in my day things were built to last but when I was a child I had a bicycle on which the downtube simply snapped one day, luckily when I wasn't hurtling down one of Lincolnshire's few small hills and I can remember how nice and smooth and pleasant the gears on currentbike were when new compared to those on oldbike. At least it's the summer when sitting outside with battered, oily fingers is less unpleasant than during the winter when the fingers lose feeling.