The Haunted Carrera

[DRM]

Having got fed up with the poltergeist that keeps changing the gears at the freewheel into two harder gears down as soon as I changed to an easier gear on my Carrera Zelos (Turbo Trainer) bike at the first sign of the roads of Watopia going uphill, so I decided to perform an exorcism on it, closer investigation revealed an inner gear cable that was rusted, frayed & generally in appalling condition, understandable as it was a neglected winter hack in a previous life, I bit the bullet & spent a whole £2 on a length of Clarks inner gear cable on click & collect at Halfords, what a difference, the gear changes are sweet as a nut, the poltergeist is gone, & I knocked a minute off the volcano climb on Zwift, happy days, previously the thing would have been up & down the gears like a badly driven automatic car, so the moral of the tale is don't let your cables get in a state !

 

[Globalti]

Well said. I've lost count of the number if times people on here have complained about poor shifting and I've replied "Change yer cables!" It can run to several pages of diagnoses before the OP does the cheapest and simplest thing and realises they were over-thinking the problem.

But did you also change the outer cable at the RD?

 

[DRM]

No I didn’t it was a quick fix, and it lives on the trainer now, but even so the difference £2 makes is astounding.
Had it been one of the bikes that gets ridden in the real world I would have bought a better quality cable set of inners and outers.

 

[Ajax Bay]

Renew the outer, regardless.

 

[Globalti]

Yes, if you haven't got cable cutters and a length of outer, get your LBS to sell you half a metre pre-cut into the right lengths and change it at the RD every six months.

 

[DRM]

I'll do it next time, I did take the rear derailleur section off and flush it through with penetrating oil, and when I fed the new inner through I lubricated the new inner with a film of oil where it is sat inside the outer cable, I also lubed the pivot points on the front & rear derailleur, but as I say the bike is permanently indoors now as it has a turbo tyre fitted.