Sjtaylor

I just acquired a 63cm 2017 Trek 520 Disk. It was kind of a rescue bike and of course I enjoyed giving it a frame up rebuild and in the process replaced a crunchy bottom bracket, cassette and chain. My personal touch was to add a Surley Trucker drop bar.

I just finished a two day ride, 60 mile back to back days on the 520. That’s my fitness limit for now. No surprises and I enjoyed the 42cm wide tires.

A few things I noticed. First is the naked top tube. I have a few other bikes and they either have a top tube routed cable or a weird shaped aluminum top tube. The naked round top tube is work stand, bike rack and frame bag friendly. That’s probably a small thing but I definitely noticed it.

The second thing is a frame lug for a rear mounted kick stand. I’ve always poo-pooed kick stands but the integrated kick stand may be cool.

Another thing that really caught my attention was the bar end shifter cable routing. I have a couple 80s bar end shifter bikes with shifter cable routing that is underneath the bar tape along the drop and then leaves the bar and loops out unsupported until the cable stop on the down tube. The Trek 520 has the shifter cable routed under the bar tape clear to the stem. That routing really cleans up the look and makes clearance for bags or whatever else.

Finally a question. The two different bar end shifter cable routings I described, what are pros and cons?



Thanks.

imi

If the shifting is good with the cables wrapped all the way to the stem, then having to use long (tandem) wires is the only con. I think mine are 300cm.

Sjtaylor

I was able to reuse the rear shift cable so don’t know if I’ll be needing an extra long shift cable. Thanks for the heads up. I think I’ll buy a few of those long cables and be ready to modify my two other bar end shifter bikes when that time comes.

So far the RD shifts fine with the cable routed under the bar tape.

Tourist in MSN

I have run the cables for bar ends under the full length of the bar tape on several different bikes and I prefer that.

On my folding bike, the cable is fully housed and has some extra bends due to the frame folding mechanism, that causes a lot of extra cable friction, thus on my folding bike the shifting is poor. But I suspect it would be poor with any type of shifter with fully housed cable.

On some of my bikes I needed tandem length cables because of the extra length. I see no downside other than longer cable. There might be a bit more friction from that but it has not caused my shifting to be impaired. My handlebar bag location would make the conventional cable routing problematic, see photo. On this bike, the rear shifter cable is 2160mm in length.



If you are curious about the elastic wrapped around the front brake lever, that is my parking brake to keep the bike from rolling when leaning against something.

imi

It may be wise to run the cable around the handlebars with as soft bends as possible.

I use the see-through plastic strip (triangular segments) that came with my Shimano bar end shifters between the bar-ends and brake hoods under the tape. Don’t know if it helps, but it can’t hurt, and I actually like the extra profile when in-the-drops

mstateglfr 

- A clean top tube is nice. My current touring bike uses amy old gravel bike frame and it has all 3 cables running along the top. I dislike that design. I dont run a frame bag, but even still, its not a great design.

- I route my bar end shifters under the tape all the way to the stem where the housing exists with the brake cable. As long as the bends aren't too severe, its a significantly nicer routing than having them shoot out from the bar's drops. The only potential downside is poor shifting, which I haven't had yet(3 different bar bends and 3 different bar end shifters).

Oh, don't clamp the bike to a repair stand by the top tube. No upside to that. Balance it, sure, but clamping it leads to scratching paint or worse.

Sjtaylor

My Trek 520 has those plastic strips. When I retaped I left them in. I wonder what purpose they have.

Germany_chris

I run them through to the stem since it makes dealing with handlebar bags easier

Sjtaylor

I have one of those Ortlieb handle bar bags with the lockable mounting bracket that lashes to the handlebar with a thin cable. The bracket is mounted to another bike that has bar end shifters with looped shifter cables. The bag clears okay but the cables look to be in the way of many of the large handlebar bags I see.

Tourist in MSN

The photo of my handlebar bag above shows the bag several inches lower than most other installations, I used a second stem setup to lower the bag.

Tourist in MSN

When this thread started, I had forgotten that a few years ago when I ran cables under bar tape that I had taken a photo before putting the cork tape over the cables, added that photo here. The tape is filament strapping tape, very strong, holds the cables to the bars before I added the cork handlebar tape. The filament tape is left on to keep everything in the right place while I add the cork tape.