Whether you know it or not, you’ve probably experienced a mountain bike cable nightmare. Two weeks ago we asked you to share your stories of cable frustration and we got some pretty serious cable rants. Here are four of our picks for the must annoying MTB cable experiences – luckily the writers will be getting a free set of sealed, low friction derailleur cables from Gore!
Beware the complicated cable system!
GoldenGoose easily had the most entertaining cable nightmare (to his readers anyway – I doubt he’d describe the experience as entertaining). It turns out the expensive, designer cable system he chose was way too complicated to be worthwhile. After what must have been weeks of ordering additional parts, GoldenGoose finally got things installed – let’s just hope he doesn’t need to make any trailside repairs with all those tiny interlocking parts! This one deserves an excerpt:
… I then opened the baggie with the very small, “inter-locking”, shiny metal pieces too quickly and every one of them fell onto the floor. I proceeded to scream a four letter word that rhymes with “duck”. I got on my hands and knees and probably picked up at least a thousand of these little metal thingys and stuck them in a cup for safe keeping. I would later find at least 3 more of them while walking barefooted to the bathroom at 5 AM. I would again scream out that four letter word.
…
The whole process is very tedious work and it would be better suited to a person with hands the size of a child or a leprechaun. 5 hours of work put into these cables at this point. (Four letter word again.)
The Gore RideOn Derailleur Cables are “extra long” so you won’t need to go back and forth to get the right length. The elegantly simple design makes use of a minimal number of parts which means less frustration and fewer points of potential failure. Sweet.
Housing grit & derailleur cables in brake housing
dchaney389 found out the hard way that shattered components can introduce grit and dirt into cable housings and that it’s important to consider replacing cables when you change out major stuff like derailleurs and brakes. On top of that dchaney389 was given brake housing for his derailleur cables which is never a good fit. It turns out proper derailleur housing will be stiffer than brake housing to give you more precise shifting.
Gore Cable Systems include Grub Seal caps with liners to keep grit and gunk out of the sealed cable system. Fortunately they also label their products well so you’ll never make the mistake of using brake cables and housing on your derailleur again 🙂
Grit causes shifting problems which lead to more broken components
Even if you don’t break a derailleur, normal riding conditions can introduce grit into your cable housings. Xerien picked up some grit in a creek crossing which caused an annoying “ghost shift” during a ride. For those who don’t know, “ghost shifting” is when your derailleur seems to develop a mind of its own and shifts at seemingly random times. After ghost shifting through a few climbs, Xerien ended up bending a chain link which can be a pretty serious problem. Fortunately he tracked down the grit AND the bad link and made it back to tell another tale.
Poor shifting performance isn’t just annoying, it can also damage expensive components from derailleurs to brakes to shifters to chains. Problems that start in your cables will quickly spread so it’s important to nip cable problems in the bud.
Freezing your cables off
In December there was some discussion on the forums about how to deal with a frozen (as in ice) freewheel hub but it turns out this can happen to cables too, especially if moisture is able to infiltrate the housing. Fortunately it sounds like sgltrak has found frozen cables to be a temporary issue, reducing his bike to a singlespeed in winter but this can become a serious issue if the rider isn’t aware of what’s happening. Trying to shift a frozen cable can lead to cable snap or even component damage in the worst case scenario.
How would I deal with moisture in the cable housing? You guessed it – I’d install a Gore RideOn Sealed Cable System to keep the moisture out. Because these babies are low friction and sealed they will rarely (if ever) freeze up on you due to temperature or grime!
I’ll be installing my own set of Gore Derailleur Cables along with these guys and will share my experiences here on the blog. Make your happy cable dreams come true with Gore!
