Originally Posted by
conspiratemus1
‘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?
Well, telling you to reread the post cleared up a misconception you had about the problem. I miss things on posts as well. I have zero problems with blood pressure. In fact my blood pressure goes the other way...towards low blood pressure. It’s a family thing.
The outer housing has only a very slight twist if it has any at all. It’s certainly not tight enough to cause the cable, which has its own twist, to rub on the rods and cause much harm to either the cable or housing. Brake housing’s helix is at almost 90° to the cable.
Last edited by cyccommute; 10-11-20 at 06:08 PM.