Metis

Force 22 HRD right/rear shift cable keeps coming out of the holding slot within the shifter. It's happening increasingly frequently where I'll go to shift mid-ride/race and lose the ability to shift. Basically the little barb on the shift end of the cable comes undone from the retention slot somehow and of course the derailleur pulls on the cable and I'm stuck in the hardest gear for the rest of the ride. Anyone had this happen?

My Ultegra 6800 shifters had a design with something like a 270 degree bend frayed the cables over time and I'm curious if these shifters are prone to something similar. Fixing this involves undoing the cable from the rear derailleur, removing the covers from the shifter, and pushing the cable back up and through to rehook it into the cable holder. I've also replaced the cable on the shifter multiple times so the next step is redoing the housing (internally routed mess).



Shifter cable comes undone from the red cable housing during riding.

redlude97

Undo the cable at the RD. Slide the cable in the housing. Does it slide smoothly across the whole range? I'm guess the housing/cable are gunked up and the derailleur tension isn't enough to keep the cable end in the holder,

dsaul

The only way for that to happen is the shifter moves and the cable doesn't. It has to be a cable friction issue and the housing is probably to blame. It could be worn or dirty cable housing or there may be some sharp bends in the housing that were fine when it was new, but are causing friction with some wear on them.

Another possibility with SRAM is the rear derailleur parallelogram pivots. The GX rear derailleur on my gravel bike gets sticky when the pivot points get dirty. It doesn't cause the cable to come out of the shifter, but it does cause a delayed upshift(harder gear). Its not that big of a problem on the gravel bike, because hitting bumps overcomes the frction and causes the derailleur to move. On a road bike, you may not hit any bumps that would cause the sticky pivots to break free quickly enough.

Metis

Strange, I had a bike shop replace the cable and housing but the same thing happened at the end of the ride. So frustrating. The shifters are 6 months old and the derailleur isn't much older. I'm thinking something happened within the shifter that's not obvious just by glancing inside. Doh!

Geekage

Funny, my HRD Apex and S-700 shifters aren't slotted, so they don't and can't have that problem.

I'd kludge a fix by somehow fixing the cable head into place, say putting a small self tapping screw behind it, filling the slot, or something.

Admittedly, mine are older models. So why are yours slotted? Because they're newer or because they're higher end?

Redbullet

I think it might occur frequently in this situation: You shift 3-4 (or more) cogs at once toward the small cog, without pedaling. The cable loses tension, but the chain does not allow RD to move full range for that multiple shift. This makes the cable to comes out of the holding slot within the shifter (the red barrel rotates, but the cable does not follow its move). When start pedaling, the RD completes full move, but the cable falls to get back its normal place on the holding slot. If so, the only solution is to put the cable back with some sort of tweezers or small screwdriver.

It happened to me a few times with Force 22 - road, on the repair stand. I noticed that the only way to avoid it is to never make multiple shifts at once toward the small cog, without pedaling.

Metis

Sorry for the late reply - this is exactly what's happening. I've taken the same approach to remedy the issue and won't do multiple shifts if I'm not pedaling at a decent rpm (even then I'm hesitant).

Chilepines

I have the same problem on a Rival 22 and it is making me crazy. I have a GX rear now but it was doing it with the Rival rear derailleur also. I bought the most expensive housing you can get (Jagwire Elite Link) to resolve the issue with the cable coming out of the shifter at a strange angle to the bar and it is better but not resolved. Did you ever come up with a fix?

cxwrench

Are you upshifting multiple gears while coasting?

Chilepines

No - that is not the problem. With the GX RD (which is a 2x10 but supposed to be compatible with 11 spd) and Rival shifters , when you go into the biggest cog it doesn't want to drop back down. It is not the cable, because even when the cable is disconnected and I am moving the derailleur manually, it will not drop. It's like the GX is going too far in and then can't move back out unless I push it. And no, it's not the b-screw.
I put the Rival 22 RD back on today and it is better. I also put epoxy on the cable end inside the shifter to keep it from coming out of the dumb slot SRAM put in there!

Metis

I wound up doing what Redbullet suggested and made sure to not shift multiple gears when coasting/pedaling lightly. It seems like the shifter was just prone to having the cable slip out of the slot.

My ultimate solution was upgrading to Shimano Di2 and I'll never look back. Worth every penny.

cxwrench

If you're sure it's not the b screw then the derailleur is bad. If it's less than a year old have your shop file a warranty claim. It's happened a bunch.

Chilepines

Of course both derailleurs were bought online. The GX was doing that to some extent out of the box but then got worse.
I definitely considered upgrade today but you can't get either Di2 or the new Rival AXS - maybe in another month GRX will be back in stock. No idea when AXS will be.
Anyone have luck going directly to SRAM for warrant type issues or technical help?

cxwrench

SRAM warranty HAS to be done through a bike shop.

Chilepines

FWIW I did a ride today with the Rival 22 RD and the shifting was flawless, including into and out of the 36 tooth cog that it is not supposed to be able to handle (SRAM says 32t max). It seems that the GX 2x10 cannot handle the slightly increased width of the 11 speed cassette.