Post Your MTB Cable Nightmares - Win Gore Derailleur Cables!

[trek7k]

We've all experienced cable nightmares on the trail and in the shop - now it's time to get some real cables from Gore so it doesn't happen again! We'll select a few of the best cable nightmare stories from this forum to feature on the blog and the winners will receive a set of Gore RideOn Extra Long Sealed Derailleur Cables ($65 MSRP). Post your story here before midnight, August 2, 2009 and winners will be announced on August 3.


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[trek7k]

I'll kick things off.

I was just starting a ride about a year ago when about 1 mile into it I snapped my rear derailleur cable during a shift. The cables weren't old (less than a year at that point) and I wasn't doing anything too crazy. Anyway, not wanting to ride a single speed the rest of the way I cut the ride short and rode back.

A couple days later I hit the bike shop and bought 3 packages of cheap, basic derailleur cables (I think I only paid about $3 per cable). At home I tried using some electrical wire cutters and ended up fraying all 3 sets of cables so badly that none were usable. Back to the bike shop.

This time I thought I would be smart and go for the "nicer" cables - I splurged on teflon coated deals that cost $5 per cable. Back home, same problem - frayed cables. To the bike shop once again...

This time I brought my whole bike and the mechanic noticed that in addition to new cables I also needed new housing. Apparently there was a lot of "gunk" inside that was causing friction on the cables which led to the snap a few days before. Good to know. I also found out that you really need a special cable and housing cutting tool to do the job right.

I haven't tried GORE's sealed system yet but from what I understand there's very little chance for "gunk" accumulation and the cables themselves are very strong. I need this system!
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[PghDragonMan]

Many years ago, a mechanic at a local bike shop I frequented talked me int a set of Park cable cutters. One of the best investments I made in bicycle tools. Up until them I used a pair of side cutters for all my bike cables and always have frayed cable ends. Unlike side cutters, these have a "V" on both cutting blades that the cable sits in. When you cut, the cable end has a nice clean cut. The tool still does a great job, even 20+ years later!

That won't have any bearing on the gunk inside the housing, but it will help, operative word is "help", control the frayed end problem. I've also become a regular used of a dab of superglue on the cable end just ABOVE where I'm going to cut to help control unraveling.

The gunk issue is something different. It is real and a coated housing helps. I don;t kow what my bike has now, but when the time comes, I will replace everything with coated housings at that time.

[maddslacker]

Well, my cable nightmare is more imagined than real. You see my Specialized Rockhopper still has the original derailleur (and brake) cables that it came with in 2003. They are Jagwire, and I'm sure they need to be replaced, but they have performed so well I'm afraid to touch them as anything I install will probably work worse.
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[dchaney389]

So last Christmas I finally took the plunge and handed over the cash for my first quality mountain bike, a Cannondale Rize 4. Everything went beautifully until, while learning to do a wheelie while clipped in, I went over backwards in a gravel parking lot and, in the process, smashed my rear derailleur housing open. Being relatively new to the sport and rather naïve, I didn’t realize what an issue this would be. A few rides later my ability to shift my rear derailleur was nearly nonexistent. When I complained to a more experienced mechanic-friend, he pointed out that there was probably a lot of dirt in the housing, due to the large hole from my earlier accident. That made sense. At his recommendation I replaced the whole length of housing and the cable. Already feeling ignorant and humble, I didn’t ask any questions when my friend handed me a new housing to use. Well, a few months of mediocre shifting and one more examination by yet another professional mechanic later, I have learned that you really shouldn’t use brake housing in place of derailleur housing. That’s right, my friend had accidentally given me brake housing. I now know that brake housing is slightly flexible allowing better brake modulation, while derailleur housing is totally rigid, for cleaner, more precise shifting. I’m just glad I have friends who know this stuff. (And hopefully the Jagwire Ripcord I’ve just ordered will do the trick… if it ever arrives.)

[mudly68]

As short, sweet, and entertaining as I can be at the moment: I've been telling people here and there for about 6 months that I really wanna go mtbiking, finally (and kinda scarily) someone took me up on it about a month and half ago. I roll up with my "vintage" Trek 820 and I hear some laughs, some snickers, some comments about it being the kind of bike you put on your wall, not take on the trail. Its all I got, and I didn't get this far to chicken out now. So off I go, following the boys with suspension and fancy shifters and gloves and shin guards. My instructions to them was simply no broken bones, everything else- fair game. First time out- AWESOME! And my bike stayed solid (quite surprisingly I now realize). Second time out- different trail, WHOA! I was all over the place, felt like I just took my training wheels off, feet touching down everywhere. My grip shifter was on the fritz, my handlebar grips came off entirely, I'd already tucked and rolled once, and I'm trying desperately not to get left behind, all the while trying not to roll down the 30 ft drop off the side of the trail. I'm hanging in there, but just barely... and then I'm headed down a steep downhill (one that already had me thinking twice about walking it) and I'm 3/4 of the way down, nearly ready to celebrate on making it, and my rear brake lets loose. I am ass over tea kettle before I can even manage to get out the word ****! My riding buddy gave me bonus points for my form. My rear brake cable- completely frayed/snapped. So now I'm down to front breaks for the rest of the ride. Entertaining? You betchya

[Shane_Thompson86]

[IATyler]

Mine hasen't happened to me but I always have a vision of mustering up the courage to huck the big drop at my local FR trails and I'm going to try and grab the brakes at the bottom but the cables snap. Or climing and at the top of the hill the cable snaps and I have to ride home in a low gear pedaling my ass off
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Freerider

"There are only 2 things infinite, the universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe." Albert Einstein

[mudly68]

[element22]

I had a few times where riding in really bad weather in the middle of no where I managed to get into some nasty mud and it ended up cloging my shifting. Once in paticular my rear shifter cable near the derailleur clogged so badly that it locked solid. What ended up happening was some dirt got jammed and stopped the cable from moving...So I tried to force it free..The only thing that ended up happening was that the cable housing strands forced themselves out of the aluminum cable fruel and still didn't work....Very frustrating cause I was now running with only three speeds...Lucky it was third from the largest cassette, so it was enough that I could get out. That is what started me on my quest for sealed cables.
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[Xerien]

This one's more of a hassle than a nightmare; I've been pretty lucky with cables so far...

During a shallow creek crossing, I picked up some grit in the rear derailleur cable. (in the plastic guide that forces the near 180 outside the jacket just behind the derailleur) It wasn't immediately apparent until I started up the first significant hill. The rear started ghost shifting under power. Stopped and adjusted it out only to have the same problem again on the next hill. By the time I found and cleared the grit from the cable guide, I had apparently bent a link on the chain. Even though I had things adjusted so it was shifting nicely upside down, it was still trying to ghost shift under load. Finally tracked down the bent link (when it tried to jam in the from D.) Popped it out, popped in a spare link and finished the ride.

Besides that, the worst I've had is the front D cable jamming and refusing to allow it to drop into the smaller rings. Again, it was junk in the jacketless guide section that routes that cable under the BB housing and back up to the D.

[element22]

That is a problem..If you check out gore cables have a inner liner that keeps the cable itself sealed.
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[GoldenGoose]

Cable nightmares? Does spending 10+ hours of work over 2 weeks trying to put together your flashy new cable system count? If it's not your nightmare, trust me...it became mine.

After deciding to rebuild one of my frames with all new components I got down to running the cables and I had a HUUUUGELY important choice. (Picking up on the sarcasm? Good.)

I could choose to go with a proven, but plain-looking, system that I had personal experience with. OR I could choose a new, fancy-looking, cable system that I saw on the internet. After drinking down a couple bottles of my favorite brew of liquid courage/beer (mistake #1), I thought, "what the hell, this isn't rocket science and surely I can figure it out." (mistake #2) In my "enlightened state", I decided that researching reviews on the new housing and cable system wasn't worth the time and effort. (mistake #3) So I laid down a chunk of money on a whole new housing and cable system, the Delta Aztec Powerlines. (mistake #4..seeing the pattern yet?)

(A little info about the Powerlines cable system. It is basically a coated cable that is run through a thin plastic inner liner. The cable and inner liner are then covered by very small, "inter-locking", shiny metal pieces. Then the whole thing is run through a clear outer housing so you can see your "cool" shiny metal thingys whenever you look at the cable housing. Actually the shiny metal thingys are supposed to prevent loss of power due to housing compression but it's hard for me to notice a difference, honestly.)

A week goes by and a box on my front porch lets me know the fun has arrived! I pull the system out of the boxes and the first thing I remember thinking was, "wow, that's a lot more parts than I was expecting." Lots of neat little baggies of shiny metal pieces, ferrules, rolls of liners, and housing. The directions they included were only 4 lines long. Oh well, not rocket science, right? I looked at the instructions 2 or 3 times while drinking down more liquid courage and decided it was time to get started. I figured there was no way I'd need more than a couple of hours to take off the old cables and replace them with the shiny new ones. (mistake #5)

Then I opened the baggies. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, housing that is rolled up will quickly unravel when it is not being held by the bag. This creates a nice whipping effect that proceeded to smack me in the arms and face and knock over one of my bottles of brew. It was now a case of alcohol abuse and I was getting a bit aggravated!

Of course, 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. I would soon learn that these small shiny metal thingys would make me HATE the Powerlines system.

I'm an hour into the process and ready to measure the old housings so I can cut my new ones to the same length when I see the next problem in my endless nightmare. I had intended to run full housing over the brake cables and I needed about 12 more inches of clear plastic housing to make everything fit. I'd had enough for one night so I ordered went online and ordered an extra length of clear Powerline housing which showed up at my house 4 days later.

Surely the worst was over and with extra housing in hand and a rejuvenated attitude I continued my project. After measuring and cutting my cables, I did the same with the thin inner liner that fits around them. The cable gets inserted into the liner. I then slid the cables, with their inner lining already on, into the clear housing. All I had left to do was put a ferrule on one end of the housing and thread the cable (with liners) into the shiny "interlocking" metal thingys. (Notice that I keep quoting the word interlocking.

The metal thingys, I would find out, are directional so they have to be put in 1 by 1. This can be a REAL hassle for far sighted people such as myself. In my first attempt, they all came loose and fell out of the housing because I didn't put them in the correct direction. (I screamed the four letter word that rhymes with "duck" again.)

The second time around I found out that the ferrule on the end of the housing is really the only thing that holds the metal thingys in place under the housing. When you put too many metal things over the cable, it pushes the ferrule off the end and ALL your metal thingys fall to the floor. (Out came the four letter word again.)

The third time around, I did everything right yet they still fell out! Why? Because they don't actually "interlock" as claimed. At least, they don't do it very well! 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 fourth and fifth times around the inner liner gets pinched between two "interlocking" metal thingys and actually tears inside of the housing. The lining was ruined and, once AGAIN, I didn't have enough to finish the job. I ordered some more online and waited MORE days for it to arrive. (I started sounding like a broken record screaming out my favorite four letter word in frustration.)

When the liners came in I went BACK to work on the never ending cable job and this time I FINALLY got it done correctly. Normally I find that there's a great sense of satisfaction at the completion of bike repairs. All I felt this time around was an immense sense of relief and a desire to wash out my mouth with soap.

For the most part, the cables have performed reasonably well.

As far as the installation process...I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.
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[element22]

Bro...I feel really bad for you...I know about THOSE cables and have installed a set on a friends bike..And yea I totally know about the "interlocking" design...
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[sgltrak]

My biggest cable nightmares come in the winter. A couple of my bikes have cables routed beneath the down tube and under the bottom bracket. During some winter rides, the street is warm enough to melt the snow from the streets, but the air temperature is cold enough that the moisture freezes when it hits the bike. Moisture that has landed on the housings and seeped inside becomes solid ice, making the bike a single speed (not that there is anything wrong with that.)