Is it impossible to change the cable on a SRAM X-0 9-speed twist shifter?

[JimN]

It is impossible, isn't it? I do need a twist shifter on the Trice recumbent and I remember buying it as an upgrade a while ago with a cable already installed. Now the time has come to replace it and I confidently open the little window, pull out the old cable .... and then start to thread the new one. But there is nowhere obvious to go, the window is too small with the mechanism barely visible .... and the cable end gets frayed time and time again. I ruin that cable, start a new one, same thing, getting rather angry now. I have a coffee to try to cool down, I have wasted so much time already, and then I take the shifter completely apart from the top-end (not difficult)  but it doesn't really help ... even when I manage to get the cable with minimal fraying into the canal then there is still a 90 degree bend to get round - which a simple porthole would remedy, but, of course, nothing there. It is SO badly designed I cannot believe that I haven't missed something obvious, especially when no-one else seems to have mentioned any problem.  I am now stuck with my normal commuting machine out of action, a couple of hours wasted, and the dilemma of what to do next.....
Does this sound familiar or am I being a dork?

[Kim]

Yes, it's doable.  I've even done it.

The trick is to put a ~30degree kink in the cable about 10mm from the end, then keep twisting it as you feed it in.  Eventually you'll feel it snag on the corner it's got to go round, and the rest is deceptively easy.  A combination of knack and a fair amount of luck.

A cable with some solder or glue on the end to stop it fraying is likely to improve your chances.

[JimN]

Yes, it's doable.  I've even done it.

The trick is to put a ~30degree kink in the cable about 10mm from the end, then keep twisting it as you feed it in.  Eventually you'll feel it snag on the corner it's got to go round, and the rest is deceptively easy.  A combination of knack and a fair amount of luck.

A cable with some solder or glue on the end to stop it fraying is likely to improve your chances.

But surely hopeless design?! I know that I am repeating the old, old story but doesn't it seem odd that what should be a routine maintenance issue has been made so extraordinarily difficult?  Anyway, my fiddling has pretty much bust that one and so I have ordered a new lower spec one in a) the hope that it will be easier to change and b) less to spend when I give up in despair next time! I am left with a sense of resentment at the time I spent and the fact that tomorrow I have to resort to the DF to commute

[Kim]

Agree that it's a terrible design.  Its main redeeming feature is the relatively low cheese factor compared to the average twist shifter.  I greatly prefer bar-end shifters (presumably the pull ratio on those would be wrong for the SRAM mech), but accept that twist grips are sometimes necessary (eg. on barakta's trike, we've got a twist grip and a bar-end on the same side for one-handed control).

[ElyDave]

Yes, it's doable.  I've even done it.

The trick is to put a ~30degree kink in the cable about 10mm from the end, then keep twisting it as you feed it in.  Eventually you'll feel it snag on the corner it's got to go round, and the rest is deceptively easy.  A combination of knack and a fair amount of luck.

A cable with some solder or glue on the end to stop it fraying is likely to improve your chances.

Yes, exactly the technique I used on my short-lived folder experiment, get it round the corner, and then snip off that bit later on at the business end.

[robgul]

I'm not familiar with the specific shifter BUT the technique used for fitting cables that run inside frame tubes MAY work.

1 You need a length of the inner tube from a gear cable outer (i.e. remove the outer plastic and strip away the longitudinal wires) - you're left with a very thin piece of plastic tubing.   [I have about 3 lengths about 1.5m long in the workshop]

2 Pull the cable (nipple end) out of the shifter but NOT ALL THE WAY - thread the end of the cable being removed into the plastic - a good 30cm or so to be sure it doesn't come out - then gently pull the cable through the shifter with, hopefully/possibly the tubing passing through - assuming that works then remove the old cable and thread 30cm of new cable into the plastic tube and then reverse the procedure to pull the tube and cable through the shifter.

Caveats: a) the tubing may not go through the shifter; b) if the cable is busted inside the shifter you're buggered.

The tube bodge is really best used with inside the frame cables - way better than the ParkTool magnet and cord tool that they sell at massive cost.

Rob

[Brucey]

that is a good dodge, right enough.

BTW some cables have welded ends; obviously these make for easier feeding in dodgy shifters.

Also with a lot of them you can pull the twisting part away from the rest (barbs or sometimes a screw to release) and this makes fitting a new cable much easier. I would suppose that this is how they do it in the factory; I'm not sure of the exact method in this case.

cheers

[JimN]

that is a good dodge, right enough.

BTW some cables have welded ends; obviously these make for easier feeding in dodgy shifters.

Also with a lot of them you can pull the twisting part away from the rest (barbs or sometimes a screw to release) and this makes fitting a new cable much easier. I would suppose that this is how they do it in the factory; I'm not sure of the exact method in this case.

cheers

A welded end would have made it much easier - but I have a few spare cables without and I just didn't anticipate this sort of problem .... the cable kept getting shorter and shorter as I kept snipping off the end.  In this model you CAN take the thing apart quite easily and I had great hopes -- but it actually didn't help as the canal was still hard to find and then there was that pesky 90 degree bend

[JimN]

I'm not familiar with the specific shifter BUT the technique used for fitting cables that run inside frame tubes MAY work.

1 You need a length of the inner tube from a gear cable outer (i.e. remove the outer plastic and strip away the longitudinal wires) - you're left with a very thin piece of plastic tubing.   [I have about 3 lengths about 1.5m long in the workshop]

2 Pull the cable (nipple end) out of the shifter but NOT ALL THE WAY - thread the end of the cable being removed into the plastic - a good 30cm or so to be sure it doesn't come out - then gently pull the cable through the shifter with, hopefully/possibly the tubing passing through - assuming that works then remove the old cable and thread 30cm of new cable into the plastic tube and then reverse the procedure to pull the tube and cable through the shifter.

Caveats: a) the tubing may not go through the shifter; b) if the cable is busted inside the shifter you're buggered.

The tube bodge is really best used with inside the frame cables - way better than the ParkTool magnet and cord tool that they sell at massive cost.

Rob

I wish I had known about this when I helped The French Tandem at Barny on the LEL. IMHO internal frame cable routing is bonkers at the best of times and madness when reliability is key.  I was told then that this is the way that the manufacturers actually insert the cable, then they withdraw the tubing to make it virtually impossible to replace it in any sort of dignified way. Does anybody know if that is actually true?

All I know is that 3am on your back with a torch peering up very high spec carbon fibre frame and fishing for a lost cable, having done it twice before, is neither dignified nor fun

[grams]

I wish I had known about this when I helped The French Tandem at Barny on the LEL. IMHO internal frame cable routing is bonkers at the best of times and madness when reliability is key.  I was told then that this is the way that the manufacturers actually insert the cable, then they withdraw the tubing to make it virtually impossible to replace it in any sort of dignified way. Does anybody know if that is actually true?

My carbon frame from China came with tubes sticking out of each of its slots for exactly this purpose. I hung on to the tubes to make replacing the cables later straightforward. But I'm pretty certain you don't get them supplied if you buy a factory-built bike.

(Although they're not very useful for pulling hydraulic or Di2 cable through - lots of fishing and swearing required for that. Fortunately both are a lot less likely to snap)

[zigzag]

routing internal cables is pretty straightforward with the help of neodymium magnets, that is what most bike mechanics use

[JimN]

As a rider who doesn't have a car (I have to beg my wife for a loan when essential), I am dependent on reliability.  In my experience cables break when there is no bike mechanic around - OCD tendency cyclists may carry a spare but short of that there is always the possibility of a bike shop nearby where you can pick up a cable. That used to be the end of the problem with the possibility of the ride continuing - not any more. If the manufacturers / punters insist on internal (do they?) routing, why can't they be put in the frame along with the outers? Still a nice easy change and a lot of gratitude for good design, where this thread started

[robgul]

routing internal cables is pretty straightforward with the help of neodymium magnets, that is what most bike mechanics use

A bit of a challenge on a steel bike with internal cabling - although they are rare - I have an old Raleigh Banana frame that has an internal cable for the brake in the top-tube (crossbar if you over 40!) but that has a steel tube for the cable welded inside the frame tube.

I've been working on a Cube carbon machine with internal cables today - it has a very useful "hatch" that you open under the BB so you can get hold of the cable inners quite easily.

Rob

[Torslanda]

I thought I had one of the shifters in question but when I checked this morning I found them to be SRAM 7.0 9 x 3, which have a cover over the bend. Easily removed due to the crosshead screw securing it.

Something of a retrograde step methinks.

Re internal cabling, when I built the Lapierre last year I was pleased to find a removable hatch/cable guide just above the BB. By contrast a Wilier was an utter barsteward with a 4mm hole on each side. Was glad to see the back of that one . . .

[Bolt]

I had similar frustrations with a SRAM 8 speed shifter some time ago.  I found that a clean cut cable would not go in no matter what.  But a new cable with welded end went in first time with hardly as much as a wiggle.

[JimN]

[/quote]
I've been working on a Cube carbon machine with internal cables today - it has a very useful "hatch" that you open under the BB so you can get hold of the cable inners quite easily.
[/quote]

We didn't find those hatches very useful ourselves - it still usually involved disengaging the front mech (as both cables run underneath the BB), unscrewing the hatch, a bright torch, a couple of pairs of spectacles (as we are getting old now), lying on our backs, another person to help at the top end "can you see it, I am wiggling it now?", an improvised bent hook, some pliers, and a lot of time and a lot of luck. Life is really too short for that sort of thing.

[Torslanda]

Try doing it after the customer's already had a go . . . 

[mzjo]

I've been working on a Cube carbon machine with internal cables today - it has a very useful "hatch" that you open under the BB so you can get hold of the cable inners quite easily.
[/quote]

We didn't find those hatches very useful ourselves - it still usually involved disengaging the front mech (as both cables run underneath the BB), unscrewing the hatch, a bright torch, a couple of pairs of spectacles (as we are getting old now), lying on our backs, another person to help at the top end "can you see it, I am wiggling it now?", an improvised bent hook, some pliers, and a lot of time and a lot of luck. Life is really too short for that sort of thing.
[/quote]

Can't help thinking that my answer would have been full length outer, cable ties to the outside of the frame and "get that thing out of my sight before I reach for the hacksaw". As you say "Life is too short..."

[drossall]

I've just decided I couldn't be bothered, and ordered a trigger shifter for my folder, to replace the SRAM twist shifter.

[JimN]

I've been working on a Cube carbon machine with internal cables today - it has a very useful "hatch" that you open under the BB so you can get hold of the cable inners quite easily.

We didn't find those hatches very useful ourselves - it still usually involved disengaging the front mech (as both cables run underneath the BB), unscrewing the hatch, a bright torch, a couple of pairs of spectacles (as we are getting old now), lying on our backs, another person to help at the top end "can you see it, I am wiggling it now?", an improvised bent hook, some pliers, and a lot of time and a lot of luck. Life is really too short for that sort of thing.
[/quote]

Can't help thinking that my answer would have been full length outer, cable ties to the outside of the frame and "get that thing out of my sight before I reach for the hacksaw". As you say "Life is too short..."
[/quote]
Absolutely. Getting off my original topic now, but looking afresh at all my bikes (and I have the n-1 and where n is the wife's tolerance and she is quite tolerant) they ALL have exposed gear inners. And they all get filthy and creaky and freeze in the winter . So, in my opinion, backed up on a Google search, the consensus is that full length outers should be standard wherever they are routed ...... and that was the general opinion at least ten years ago.

[Kim]

Full length outers aren't without their problems though.  If water gets in and pools at the bottom of a loop, they can gunk up surprisingly quickly, at which point the only real solution is to replace the outer.  (Flushing with lubricant is a short-term fix at best.)  Exposed inners attract more crud, but are more conducive to effective de-crudding, and it's easier to avoid u-bends in the enclosed sections.

I do think that if you're going to route cables inside a frame, full-length outers are the way to do it.  It's pretty straightforward to tape them together and use the old outer as a drawstring for the new one, and if you have to replace the inner at the roadside there's no drama.

[Brucey]

full length outers fill up with water like Kim says, and cause a lot of trouble this way. Even a small low spot is enough to cause water to pool inside the cable housing.  Conditions rapidly become anaerobic inside a lined, water-filled housing at which point even stainless steel inners can corrode away to nothing. Well, I say nothing, but it is usually a black and horrible something rather than nothing per se.

Arguably it isn't a bad idea to have a joint in the housing at the low spot just to let the water out....

Exposed cable runs ain't perfect but they can be lived with. If your BB run gets gunked up too quickly it is nature's way of telling you that you need to clean your bike more often or you need a better mudflap....

cheers


cheers

[Kim]

Arguably it isn't a bad idea to have a joint in the housing at the low spot just to let the water out....

I obtained some cable oilers for the purpose, but I'm reluctant to fit them to my USS tourer as it's another thing to snag while playing bike tetris.  A gummed up cable fails more gracefully that a barrel adjuster damaged by cable yanking.

I mostly manage the water in the cables problem by sticking plastic bags over the handlebars when parking the bike outdoors, and having some tape over the slit in the front of the brake lever, so less water gets in in the first place.  When it chucks it down I try to keep my hands over the bar-end shifters, which seems effective at keeping the gear cables dry.

Meanwhile my DF bikes' cables (with traditional exposed inners) need no real maintenance, other than regular cleaning of the bottom bracket cable guide area, until they start to fray.

[JimN]

Full length outers aren't without their problems though.  If water gets in and pools at the bottom of a loop, they can gunk up surprisingly quickly, at which point the only real solution is to replace the outer.  (Flushing with lubricant is a short-term fix at best.)  Exposed inners attract more crud, but are more conducive to effective de-crudding, and it's easier to avoid u-bends in the enclosed sections.

I do think that if you're going to route cables inside a frame, full-length outers are the way to do it.  It's pretty straightforward to tape them together and use the old outer as a drawstring for the new one, and if you have to replace the inner at the roadside there's no drama.

OK, thanks, general points taken re full-length outers. Re inside the ultra modern hi-spec frames, do any manufacturers do that? We didn't see any on the LEL

[Kim]

I have a bike with internally routed full-length outers.  It's from the 1990s.

This internally routed bare inner rubbish seems to be a more recent curse innovation.