Originally Posted by
beng1
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Anyway, if someone is serious about riding they should be serious about bike maintenance and regularly replace brake cables and check everything for alignment and wear. For a cable to snap it must have been really old.
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Or have just a minor chafe at a hidden point like an improperly seated housing at the brake lever. (And comment - everyone checks that interface every time they change their brake cable, right? Just peel back 10" of HB tape, peer up there with a flashlight and note for sure all is good.) I'll admit to getting that interface wrong using the wrong or no cable (I'm forgetting the word) cap? sleeve? I have always noticed the spungy feeling creeping in so started riding with care and the failures were never catastrophic but yes, real wake up calls.
My thinking is that the lever/housng interface of the common aero/brifter brake lever is critical enough that it should be designed to be rock solid reliable with no end cap on the housing and a very good, clean, fair and tapered entry from the HB side so that fit can be idiotically easy. No parts to lose or need to have in a bike mod. (And just to be nice to us mechanical types, an easy to find entry from the lever side for when we replace that front cable because we do that often, right?)