Internal routing hateful thing rant.

[wynne]

I've had a few older road bikes with an infernally/internally routed rear brake cable, but did any manufacturers route the gear cables internally too? Or did they have more sense.

 

[Woz]

I've had a few older road bikes with an infernally/internally routed rear brake cable, but did any manufacturers route the gear cables internally too? Or did they have more sense.

I'll just leave this here. High end 50s Randonneur. Brake cable, push-pull gear cable, and dynamo wire internally routed.



Personally I don't like the idea of internally routing cables and deliberately not bought bikes with them.

 

[wynne]

Reckon that was designed by mr parlee's grandad.

 

[Woz]

Reckon that was designed by mr parlee's grandad.

..... would love to stand over the mechanics shoulder whiles he's using a new fangled magnetic internal cable routing kit on that

To be fair, I think the early pioneers did this not from any engineering or practical point of view, just to aesthetically differentiate their product and show off their frame building skills. I've never seen the point of drilling holes in steel, aluminium and titanium tubes just to hide a bit of cable.

Agree with the statements above that today it's a different matter with carbon fibre - cheaper to make a hole and make the customer arse about with even more specific tools.

 

[wynne]

This thread has set me thinking. Assuming most big bike manufacturers sell complete bikes rather than frames, i wonder what the extra costs are to them for the labour to partially assemble all of these idiotic bikes vs the savings in manufacturing costs on frames. There's a major cost saving to be had here - as the cycling industry yet again reinvents the wheel and decides that external cables are what you really need. I know from working as a mechanic how hard it is to pass on to the customer the true cost of infernal scrabbling, sorry internal cabling, as they won't stand for the £100 bill for labour that some of the very worst/most toppermost frames require. Some are a doddle, most are absolute pigs.

 

[MattiThundrrr]

I'm currently building a bike with a two speed kick back hub and coaster brake for gravel riding. Every cable will be invisible

 

[Chopper the ex Copper]

I can't say im a fan, but don't have an issue with it either. Meh.

I was talking to a local mechanic(guy is extremely competent)and he says certain recabling/rehosing jobs now take hours with internal instead of a half hour with external routing.

It doesnt take me any longer, because Im privy to the secret tricks. They're so secret that they can only be found on youtube.

 

[2manyoranges]

I can't say im a fan, but don't have an issue with it either. Meh.



It doesnt take me any longer, because Im privy to the secret tricks. They're so secret that they can only be found on youtube.

Agreed…needle, thread, linking old to new etc. They all work well - of course there are some bikes where design is poor or tricky or it’s easy to make a mistake. Like when I link old hydraulic to new hydraulic but I pull Just a Bit Too Hard and bang…a ten minute job becomes a 30 min job … and I can see this makes or breaks profit in a workshop. Most of the latest bikes are genuinely very good re routing but since this is RetroBike it’s important to remember that sometimes we deal with poor ‘first execution’ of technology or things which are damaged/abused and then things can be a right pain….