burnthesheep

Cliffs Notes: do they sell a BB cable stop for two cables?
The bike: https://www.giant-bicycles.com/us/pr...dvanced-1-2015
Photo of the moronic OEM bendy cable guide that slips out of the flange:
https://www.reveloutdoors.co.uk/img/p...401%20zoom.jpg



It was time to do the cables on this bike. I put new bars on also that have internal routing. No issue there. I can run some cabling in the stem also, it's an Aeria Ultimate. Not running into issues there.

Brakes are ran and work well at lock to lock steering.

Now, one big flaw from Giant I don't like is how the shift cables enter the top tube and go down inside the downtube. Essentially, they have this cheap little metal flange that just sits (is not fastened or glued or anything) that the cable housing ends sit in. The way they appear to have done this is to use the tension of the shift cable housing to keep the ends in the little flange. So crappy IMO.

Anyway, to keep these from coming out when the steerer is rotated pretty far it appears Giant (or the shop assembling these) used a butt crap metric of extra cable that goes up in a loop and then down in.

Next lovely Giant design trick is that they have essentially little springy tubes on the underside of that flange which has that cable liner stuff inside them for about 6" to bend around the headtube area.

Issue with this is that those little metal deals are just kind of slid into the flange. I didn't see any glue when I took this apart. So, I don't care for that either.

Way back in 2008, with a weight penalty of a little extra cable housing.........whoa and behold Felt on their DA bikes had a 100000x better solution. The flange is molded into the frameset with 3 holes. These holes route actual cable housing all the way down to the FD cable stop and to a cable stop once it exits the frame on the rear chainstay. Money. I have no issues with that bike and I did the cables myself.

Issue here it seems is I couldn't do this because there isn't a cable stop for the FD/RD cable housings down by the bottom bracket wire guide.

Plenty of room to get the two cables down there to a stop. I'd just drill out the little flange a touch to get the cable housing through it. Only after being sure this works.

Ideas? I'm crafty and have time to do this cool/better. I'm riding the other bike in the time being.

-do they sell a BB cable stop?
-could I trim the existing BB cable guide that's for cable inside of liner so that the housing instead would fit and cable-tie the housing to hte BB cable guide?

Kind regards.

burnthesheep

I went to the LBS and bought some extra shift housing, knowing I'll mess something up and need to try again.

I took the black flange and drilled it just big enough to pass a shift housing through it. But, still small enough that if it doesn't work an end cap still fits properly.

I've got the shift housing now from the shifters through the bars and using part of the Aeria stem and all the way down and out to the BB.

I've found a cable clamp I can buy at the local hardware store to secure the cable housings at the BB like you would a cable stop.

I'll need to attach that using the BB cable guide attachment screw. I've got some spare fabricating aluminum I'll trace out the plastic guide to and use that to attach my cable stop to it securely.

I'll get to work on this, and post pics of the result when done.

burnthesheep

I found and bought the cable clamp/holder. It's basically a two cable clamp for the exact diameter that shift housing happens to be. From the wire/cable/rope section of hardware store.

It has a two tightening screws. I removed the one on the one side and drilled it out to pass through a longer screw. I then will screw this into where the BB cable guide was. I'll trim the guide length down so the liner has a path to the holes in the frame like normal. Also need to maybe use a scrap brake noodle to give a little curvature/strain relief on the cable just before the clamp to make the mounting of the clamp to the frame lower stress.

I mocked it up and looks like it will work. The cables are run now in the housings to the BB and I held it with my hand to give resistance and tried shifting and it was indexing fine both FD and RD.

Just need to finish making the RD housing piece and screw everything down.

burnthesheep

I finished up last night. It was a couple hours spent fabbing the piece of alum to hold the clamp and making sure I got things right.

It works. I sat on the trainer and went through the gears fine a good bit all the way up and down the cassette.

I need to pull the FD cable or adjust that a touch as it wants to barely get on the big ring. But, that's it.

The brakes are pulling fine.

I will say, my solution is sturdier, but the piece I have down at the BB doesn't really look amazing. You can't see it from the drive side, and barely can from the non-drive side if you're paying attention.

But, it's one of those things like "you did the work, so you know it's there".

I really like that I got rid of the stupid Giant cable nonsense at the top tube, but think during winter I will take what I learned and perhaps refine the design a bit.

I may even draw up the part in 3D and use one of those online 3D print services. Something the size of what I'd be making is usually about $35 or so in alum or plastic.

If my home-done bracket/clamp were about 1/4" or so lower profile you wouldn't notice it at all down there from any angle.

One lesson..........I have sharp quality cable cutters. I will never again buy cables with both a Shimano/SRAM shift ball and a Campy on the same cable where you cut off what you don't need. If you're running the new cable through even slightly tight spots, you need that nice "soldered" end that comes on a specific cable versus a generic.

I'll perfect the FD shift tonight and wrap the bars in tape. The cockpit looks the business and functions when steering it pretty far. Of course a "bar slapper" to a top tube isn't the intent, but I took care to do them so the cables look nice but don't rub the frame or cause a bind when turning.

Pics once the bar tape is on, bike washed, and new protective frame clear rub stickers are on.

I'm proud of it, but I'm never happy with much that I do. I need to get over the OCD. As I've seen some **** jobs for internal cabling and internal cable aero bars from some LBS's after people spent some solid money.

redlude97

Yep. If you don't have cables or are trying to reuse a cable a small dab of superglue right on the end of the freshly cut cable will hold the wires together and prevent fraying