Internal cable routing - Handlebars

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lejogger

Guru
Location
Wirral
So the bike is back on the workstand after I received my new stem, bars and seatpost - all matching 3T Team jobs. They're pretty damn nice but I'm having a little difficulty with the cable routing.

The bars in particular are the carbon 3T Ergonova Team.

My first issue is the routing itself. It's a hole that will comfortably take one cable, and it looks like probably two at a push - because I'm running SRAM Red shifters instead of shimano, both cables run along the bars rather than the shifters coming out the front, so ideally I'll have two cables each side going into the routing holes. Should I be attempting to get them both in or are they not designed for this? They say they're SRAM compatible. Should I be threading them both at the same time or individually? Should I tape them together or allow them to move individually?

What's also a pain is that there's no internal chanelling. There's an entrance and an exit hole on both sides but once the cable is in the entrance there's nothing inside to direct it out of the correct exit. any tips on threading the cable outers back out again? I managed to poke a skewer inside when experimenting and direct a brake outer out again, but see this getting complicated with a second outer present.
I'm also worried about damaging the inside of the bars with any exposed metal from the ends of the cable. I guess I could tape up the ends, and it's not like anyone will ever see in there unless I've severely wiped out!

Now my next reluctance is that I've only just rebuilt the bike last spring, so the cables are all only one season old. In order to use the internal routing, at the very least I'll have to decable the entire bike in order to thread them through. This isn't the end of the world, but given how prone trimmed cables are to fraying i feel that if I start, there's a good chance I'll need to replace the cables all round. They're Gore Ride On jobs too so they weren't cheap.

To this end then, I've completely chickened out so far. I've installed the bars but taped the cables underneath and ignored the internal routing altogether until I've got a strategy for ensuring I can get it done. They look good but obviously have cable bulges and I feel like it's a waste of a good feature of the bars. Also because the cables are stiff I have to tape them a fair way along to hold them in place so I'm unable to cut the bar tape off short to expose the glory of the carbon and the logos - a small matter, but a frustration all the same.

I'm off to John O'Groats via Lands End in May and ideally I wanted the most comfy set up ready for then, so although I could keep it like this for a season and then rebuild completely over the winter, I'd ideally like to be able to use the bars as intended for the tour, and for this summer season.

Anyone with any experience or advice to share?
 

Kestevan

Last of the Summer Winos
Location
Holmfirth.
Cant help with the bars I'm afraid.

On the dangers of the cable fraying I lightly solder the cable ends before putting the crimp on, this stops them unraveling if you need to re-cable (superglue works well too).
 

raleighnut

Legendary Member
So the bike is back on the workstand after I received my new stem, bars and seatpost - all matching 3T Team jobs. They're pretty damn nice but I'm having a little difficulty with the cable routing.

The bars in particular are the carbon 3T Ergonova Team.

My first issue is the routing itself. It's a hole that will comfortably take one cable, and it looks like probably two at a push - because I'm running SRAM Red shifters instead of shimano, both cables run along the bars rather than the shifters coming out the front, so ideally I'll have two cables each side going into the routing holes. Should I be attempting to get them both in or are they not designed for this? They say they're SRAM compatible. Should I be threading them both at the same time or individually? Should I tape them together or allow them to move individually?

What's also a pain is that there's no internal chanelling. There's an entrance and an exit hole on both sides but once the cable is in the entrance there's nothing inside to direct it out of the correct exit. any tips on threading the cable outers back out again? I managed to poke a skewer inside when experimenting and direct a brake outer out again, but see this getting complicated with a second outer present.
I'm also worried about damaging the inside of the bars with any exposed metal from the ends of the cable. I guess I could tape up the ends, and it's not like anyone will ever see in there unless I've severely wiped out!

Now my next reluctance is that I've only just rebuilt the bike last spring, so the cables are all only one season old. In order to use the internal routing, at the very least I'll have to decable the entire bike in order to thread them through. This isn't the end of the world, but given how prone trimmed cables are to fraying i feel that if I start, there's a good chance I'll need to replace the cables all round. They're Gore Ride On jobs too so they weren't cheap.

To this end then, I've completely chickened out so far. I've installed the bars but taped the cables underneath and ignored the internal routing altogether until I've got a strategy for ensuring I can get it done. They look good but obviously have cable bulges and I feel like it's a waste of a good feature of the bars. Also because the cables are stiff I have to tape them a fair way along to hold them in place so I'm unable to cut the bar tape off short to expose the glory of the carbon and the logos - a small matter, but a frustration all the same.

I'm off to John O'Groats via Lands End in May and ideally I wanted the most comfy set up ready for then, so although I could keep it like this for a season and then rebuild completely over the winter, I'd ideally like to be able to use the bars as intended for the tour, and for this summer season.

Anyone with any experience or advice to share?
Try threading a length (or in this case 2 lengths) of inner cable through the holes first then slide the outers over that using the inner as a guide this works on frames as well. As for the frayed cables I would suggest finding a pair which cut cleanly and then not using them for any other task EVER personally I find anvil type cutters better than bypass cutters in this application and they must cut in one sweet click.
 

JayAy

New Member
Just got the 3T Ergonova Team bars and found this post when looking for tips on how to make use of the internal cable routing - there's surprisingly little about which, when combined with lots of posts referring to the earlier design without the internal routing, caused a fair degree of doubt to creep in as to whether you can run the cables internally - you can.

I too was reusing existing cables, but a little care is all that's needed to avoid fraying - the solder idea is a good one too. I was also using SRAM Red levers. Before disconnecting the cables, shift to the small front and small rear cogs, so that everything is in the right place for reconnecting the gear cables when you've wrestled them through the internal routing on the bars .

I initially tried to feed the outer cable housing through the internal space under the bars, but could not get this to work. Then moved onto using the inner cables which proved amusing, after feeding about 40cm I realised I'd threaded it right through the entire bar width. Retreat! I was starting to get a bit nervous at this point as I couldn't get the inner to twist down to exit the internal cable run, but with the aid of a bright light and a pair of thin nosed pliers I was able to watch for the inner cable, grip it carefully with the pliers and ease it out of the internal cable routing. It was then easy to run the outer cable through using the inner as a guide. I started with the gear cable, and I also moved the gear cable exit to the inside of the lever as this made for a smoother cable run. I then repeated with the brake cable - there was plenty of room to run both through the internal routing in the bars. Repeat for the other side and all is done - well with the exception of fine tuning the lever position, reconnecting gear and break cables, checking adjustments and re-taping the bars, of course!
 
OP
OP
lejogger

lejogger

Guru
Location
Wirral
Just got the 3T Ergonova Team bars and found this post when looking for tips on how to make use of the internal cable routing - there's surprisingly little about which, when combined with lots of posts referring to the earlier design without the internal routing, caused a fair degree of doubt to creep in as to whether you can run the cables internally - you can.

I too was reusing existing cables, but a little care is all that's needed to avoid fraying - the solder idea is a good one too. I was also using SRAM Red levers. Before disconnecting the cables, shift to the small front and small rear cogs, so that everything is in the right place for reconnecting the gear cables when you've wrestled them through the internal routing on the bars .

I initially tried to feed the outer cable housing through the internal space under the bars, but could not get this to work. Then moved onto using the inner cables which proved amusing, after feeding about 40cm I realised I'd threaded it right through the entire bar width. Retreat! I was starting to get a bit nervous at this point as I couldn't get the inner to twist down to exit the internal cable run, but with the aid of a bright light and a pair of thin nosed pliers I was able to watch for the inner cable, grip it carefully with the pliers and ease it out of the internal cable routing. It was then easy to run the outer cable through using the inner as a guide. I started with the gear cable, and I also moved the gear cable exit to the inside of the lever as this made for a smoother cable run. I then repeated with the brake cable - there was plenty of room to run both through the internal routing in the bars. Repeat for the other side and all is done - well with the exception of fine tuning the lever position, reconnecting gear and break cables, checking adjustments and re-taping the bars, of course!
Cheers JayAy,
I will be sure to bookmark your post for reference when I rebuild for next season :smile:
 

hurri

Regular
Location
Maidenhead
Just found these posts when doing the wiring for my 3t ergonovas... after four hours of messing around today I'm finally wired! So I thought I would join the forum and post my experiences... ^_^

First of all, before you do anything, don't remove the bits of piping (two for each side) that 3T put through the bars when they are new. These look like gear liner, the point of them is to help you do the threading. If you do take them out then you can use a short length of solder (half bar length) shaped in a curve to replace them. Just tickle the solder wire in through one hole and out the other, then thread the tubes back along the solder. Then you canh pass the guide wire through the tubes, thread the outers along that and you are done....

In my case I was using Jagwire, which was somewhat more difficult than the normal straight through cable because it has all kinds of funky fitments on the cable which make it knobbly. For starters the brake cable has got a funny short piece of extra flexible tubing on the end supposedly to help wiring with your shifters. However this involves a fat joining piece which invariably makes life difficult. Likewise the gear cables have got a seal fixed on the end. Sooo... if you use only the "thread a piece of gear cable/brake cable through the hole and then follow that up with the outer", that won't work too well. I tried :scratch:and the knobbly bits would always get in the way.

The answer is to get hold of some 5mm heatshrink and cut a piece maybe 6cm+ long and put it on the end of the piece of cable housing you want to get through the bar. Put the heatshrink on the end of the cable housing so that half of it is shrunk round the cable outer and the other half gripping thin air. If you have done it right, the heatshrink should grip the cable fairly well. This is the end you thread onto the cable hole first. Now you can thread the cable outers along the inners but the heatshrink will emerge from the hole first. It is then a straightforward task to grip the protruding heatshrink and push the other end and bingo you can just about get anything through the bars. The bars themselves appear to be fairly rough inside so they do damage the cable housing, which doesn't help smooth insertion either. All in all I wouldn't recommend using Jagwire with these bars as the extra pain of installation is considerable

Good luck!
 
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