Originally Posted by
cyccommute
Read KC8QVO’s original post. The cables aren’t fraying at the derailer end but at the shifter end. A very different...and potentially much more expensive....problem.
And shifter cables aren’t don’t have helixes in them. They are rods of metal which would wear even less than a helix would.
Hardly a valid comparison. A worn cable housing won’t cause a catastrophic and highly expensive repair. The broken cable at the shifter will and the cable needs to be replaced before another shift because a broken cable in a shifter may destroy the shifter.
‘Kay, didn’t catch that. I read “shifter” as “derailer”. My bad. Absolutely replace cables at once if any “fraying” at the shifter — broken strands, really. Beauty of cable splicers as used on take-apart bikes is that it’s easy to release the cable at the splicer and back it out of the shifter to check for the kinks which will become broken strands soon. If all is well you just screw the splicer back together with no readjustment.
My understanding of modern derailer housing is that the longitudinal rods/wires have (or had) a slight twist in them, like the rifling lands in a firearm, or like the protein chains in collagen. So this makes them helices too. Gives them more resistance to being spread apart by the light forces involved in shifting. Brake housing has to be different. Calling them all helices allowed the same word to apply also to old-fashioned housing which was a tightly wound helix (and unlined BITD.)
Suggestion: Don’t tell people to “Read xxxx”. All it does is express hostility, which puts your blood pressure up a bit and makes you have a stroke sooner. You are accusing the person of not reading something (as in not preparing for a class or business meeting) instead of allowing that a point was mis-read, as we all have done, including those who get one-up by throwing rocks. Of course I read the post. How would I know what the post was about if I hadn’t?