Gear Cable Question

[junkie_ball]

Ok so i take my bike to the bike shop to have a service and generally tighten things up. This bike has only covered approx. 400 miles and the gears was not shifting overly smooth so was hoping the service would cure it (i made a point of informing the bike shop about the gears). Up on collecting the bike from the bike shop i find the gear change from the small chain ring to large on the front is very sluggish and non existence when in any other chain ring apart from the smallest 2 or 3 chain rings on the rear. Which if anything is worse than when it went in.

Ok i think give the bike shop the benefit of the doubt as have used them in the past without any problems with other bikes. I take it back and and they double check them now they say the indexing is correct but the cables have rusted under the ferrels and so needs replacing. This seems very suspect to me as I've only covered 400 miles on the bikes and i always make a point of cleaning and drying the bike after each ride. Ok i appreciate i have been out on this bike in the rain but can't believe the cables need replacing especially not for the £40 they want to charge me.

I haven't inspected under the ferrels myself yet but when i do if i find they are slightly grubby / rusty would a bit of wire wool and lube help ease the problem. Any views or ideas on this would be appreciated.

Sorry for the rant and long post. If you made it this far thanks for sticking with it until the end.

 

[TissoT]

Try a bit of WD40 ... using the straw around the areas in question
Inc moving parts on the Rear Mec

 

[junkie_ball]

Trusty WD40 hey will give it a little squirt before heading out on a ride tomorrow and see how that goes!

 

[Flying Dodo]

It's a bit odd that the bike shop hadn't actually checked all the gears worked as part of the service. Or rather, if they didn't work correctly, they should have advised you of the issue.

 

[fossyant]

Cheap cables can rust quite quickly.

Order replacement cables on line if you can do it yourself.

 

[junkie_ball]

It's a bit odd that the bike shop hadn't actually checked all the gears worked as part of the service. Or rather, if they didn't work correctly, they should have advised you of the issue.

My thoughts exactly on the issue aswell.

Cheap cables can rust quite quickly.

Order replacement cables on line if you can do it yourself.

Thought about doing it myself if the clean up doesn't work. Having never done them before i'm slightly weary as i have internal cables and would need to remove the handle bar wraps to do it. How easy is it to re-thread the new cable through the tubes of the frame? Hope the clean up will work though.

Not sure if the cables were cheap but i'd hope not as the bike is a specialised and the cables are originals (cost 1K although i know this is a cheap bike to some but not me)

 

[Dragonwight]

What spesh is it then and how old? Don't know about internally routed cables but the externally routed ones on my spesh lasted a couple of years with regular usage all year round and I never saw any rust ever.

 

[Globalti]

Yes the shop is right but no, it's not the cable inner, it's the cable outer underneath the plastic ferrules at each end. Water gets inside and rusts the cable reinforcements, clogging everything up. You need to be changing that cable outer at the rear derailleur every six months and much more often in wet weather to maintain good shifting performance. Get the bike shop to sell you a metre of cable outer, pre-cut to pieces the right length and a handful of ferrules and some inner cable end caps. Learn to change the cable outer yourself and adjust the shifting. While changing the outer it's usually enough to pull the inner through some wire wool and then your fingers moistened with a little dry chain lube. Refit the ferrules with a dab of grease or vaseline to help waterproof them.

That said, the shop should have done this for you at the service.

 

[junkie_ball]

Yes the shop is right but no, it's not the cable inner, it's the cable outer underneath the plastic ferrules at each end. Water gets inside and rusts the cable reinforcements, clogging everything up. You need to be changing that cable outer at the rear derailleur every six months and much more often in wet weather to maintain good shifting performance. Get the bike shop to sell you a metre of cable outer, pre-cut to pieces the right length and a handful of ferrules and some inner cable end caps. Learn to change the cable outer yourself and adjust the shifting. While changing the outer it's usually enough to pull the inner through some wire wool and then your fingers moistened with a little dry chain lube. Refit the ferrules with a dab of grease or vaseline to help waterproof them.

That said, the shop should have done this for you at the service.

Thanks for the advise. Will defo look into that. I have been learning slowly to adjust the gears myself (think i've just about got the hang of it) to save a few pennies and been looking at how to replace the inner cables myself. Will look into learning how to do the outer cables and ferrels too as seems quite straight forward to me and would rather save a few pennies if i could.

 

[cd365]

I wouldn't be going back to that shop