Broken cable hard to remove

[Harry Meatmotor]

Couple little tricks that can help:

loosen the brake cable completely so that you can pull the brake lever all the way to the bar, then take a rubber band and wrap it around the brake lever and the drops of the handlebar. You’ve now freed up one more hand to fiddle with the broken cable. also, shift the shifter into the smallest cog, or innermost chain ring (depending on which model Tiagra you’ve got, it’s either the thumb button on the inside of the hood, or the small paddle shift lever). this will line up the cable end with the cable access port. using a small pick-like tool makes things easier (most shop mechanics will take a section of a spoke and grind it down until its sharp and use that to finagle out a broken cable end).

[MFC]

@Harry Meatmotor 101325 wrote:

Couple little tricks that can help:

loosen the brake cable completely so that you can pull the brake lever all the way to the bar, then take a rubber band and wrap it around the brake lever and the drops of the handlebar. You’ve now freed up one more hand to fiddle with the broken cable. also, shift the shifter into the smallest cog, or innermost chain ring (depending on which model Tiagra you’ve got, it’s either the thumb button on the inside of the hood, or the small paddle shift lever). this will line up the cable end with the cable access port. using a small pick-like tool makes things easier (most shop mechanics will take a section of a spoke and grind it down until its sharp and use that to finagle out a broken cable end).

Thanks.

[DismalScientist]

Brifters… They’re instruments of the devil, I tell ‘ya.

[vvill]

I had an issue like this where my right shifter cable was frayed and all tangled inside the shifter. Took to it my LBS (Bikenetic) and they fixed it with a lot of labor, and very little cost to me.

[MFC]

@DismalScientist 101343 wrote:

Brifters… They’re instruments of the devil, I tell ‘ya.

Tell me about it. I think we should replace the Movement for Credible Cycling with the Movement to Bring Back Friction Shifters.

[jrenaut]

@MFC 101350 wrote:

Tell me about it. I think we should replace the Movement for Credible Cycling with the Movement to Bring Back Friction Shifters.

Oh, great, Dismal has found a new friend.

[Harry Meatmotor]

@jrenaut 101359 wrote:

Oh, great, Dismal has found a new friend.

If Dismal’s username portends his real life profession, I’ve been told that Economists don’t have friends; they have people who share similar assumptions willing to argue with them. :p

[Crickey7]

mfc;101324 wrote:

i had a road bike with shimano tiagara sti shifters. Now i have a road bike with shimano 105 shifters.

ftfy

[dkel]

@vvill 101347 wrote:

I had an issue like this where my right shifter cable was frayed and all tangled inside the shifter. Took to it my LBS (Bikenetic) and they fixed it with a lot of labor, and very little cost to me.

Same here, on a Tiagra STI in fact! Mine pretty much stopped shifting before the fraying got too bad, so Brian at Bikenetic got mine straightened out pretty easily. Sounds like it’s not an uncommon problem, though. Cost to me was only for the new cable, because I bought the bike at Bikenetic, and all my labor is free!! Kudos to you, MFC, if you do the job yourself.

[peterw_diy]

@dkel 101378 wrote:

Sounds like it’s not an uncommon problem

One of the downsides of brifters — prevailing wisdom is you need to replace shifting cables more often, and before anything goes wrong. Not a problem with DT, bar end, or stem shifters.

-Retro-Peter

[hozn]

I think this issue was specific to that external cable design. At least everyone I know with old-school Shimano brifters have had this happen at some point. I also had a cable snap on my under-tape 5700 brifter, but it was not in an awkward position and was easy to replace.

Then I switched to SRAM. I miss the larger hoods a little, but the shifting is so much nicer — less vague. And they don’t feel as cheap.

[Drewdane]

The answer is obvious: get a new bike.

[DismalScientist]

What is this with Bikinetic and low priced labor? I had the same problem with a 105 brifter and tried to fix it and failed. They charged me half price since I tried. I would think that I demonstrated sufficient incompetence that they should charge me more for my desperation.

[dkel]

@DismalScientist 101398 wrote:

What is this with Bikinetic and low priced labor? I had the same problem with a 105 brifter and tried to fix it and failed. They charged me half price since I tried. I would think that I demonstrated sufficient incompetence that they should charge me more for my desperation.

You’re the economist; shouldn’t you tell us?

[DismalScientist]

That’s it. I can’t explain it. I expect everyone to be as cold-hearted as me.

[Author]

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