A Symposium on Shift Cables

A frayed, partially broken shift cable

A while back, I heard a participant in an indoor cycling class talking about shifting problems with her road bike. I could tell she was a distance rider with plenty of endurance rides under her belt, as opposed to someone who rides a few miles on the Monon Trail on holiday weekends. It was also pretty clear, though, that she had limited knowledge of how her machine works. I say that because her problem was a frayed shift cable, but she had no idea why it caused her problem!

My first road bike (a 1964 Garlatti) had shift levers on the down tubes: you could follow the entire length of the cables running from the levers to front and rear derailleur. Not so my current road bikes (a 1994 Trek 1400 and a 2015 Fuji Altamira): they both have Shimano STI® integrated shifters, with the end of the shift cable concealed inside the shifter beneath the rubber “hood.” Cables, in case you didn't know, aren't solid wires: they’re made of multiple strands of stainless steel braided together, which allows them to be flexible while minimizing stretch.

Park Tool CN-10: Well-Designed and Useful Cycling Tool

Park Tool CN-10 Professional Cable and Housing Cutter

If you, as do I, have several bicycles around the house and the garage and have come to the realization that you'd much rather perform your own normal maintenance out in the garage than go without your bike for a week, one of the critical tools you're going to need in your bike maintenance arsenal is a cable and housing cutter. Don’t be like me: the first few times I replaced a shift cable, I dug my ordinary wire cutters out of my toolbox. The result was a nightmare threading the cables through the housings and fitting a ferrule on the cut end. I've even tried using a dab of solder to “silver” the end of the cable.