The ULTIMATE mechanical shifting hack!

[@vongdong10]

Jagwire has something called a 'slick lube liner' that goes over exposed cables. I used those inside the frame.

[@squngy0]

Most high performance housings have an equivalent to that, it isn't unique to Jagwire. Jagwire is a good option though.

[@martinfleming7001]

I cut the cable along its length and pull out this inner so there is no need to drill end stops and run the outer through the frame.

[@NeoPayneHK]

@@squngy0 you can put those liner only inside the frame but no need for full length.

[@fubbaquestor]

Gore cable and housing had the best version of this. RIP :(

[@hogiewan]

@@squngy0 He means instead of using the housing all the way through, use that liner on what would be bare cable to reduce friction where it passes under the BB

[@cosinus_square]

You can use a length of inner liner for the bottom bracket area only, it usually stays in place without any issues. It's a trick I learned from an oldtimer I used to do clubrides with, they used the liner back in the day for steel bottom bracket shells with steel cable guides, when a plastic cable guide could not be used due to bottom bracket shell shape or cutouts.

[@space.youtube]

You only use a small section (6-7 cm) of the "white tubing" (cable liner) at the bottom bracket cable guide. The bend in the tensioned cable as it bends around the BB keeps the piece of cable liner in place.

[@cup_and_cone]

x2 - Been doing it this way for years. A drop of Triflow or thin lube into the liner is all you need every so often to keep it frictionless.

[@jackriley1989]

This is how I do it too

[@11robotics]

Strangely enough, this solution is more popular for MTBs and touring bikes mainly because it allows the cable and housing to be far more immune to contamination with water/dust/mud and to reduce or delay the loss of shifting performance over time when the bikes are ridden in wet/muddy conditions. However, it actually adds up friction compared to a *properly installed* gear shifter cable setup where the cable actually runs free within the frame. In your particular case, the fact that it improved shifting is very likely due to the following factors: - a change in the cable path compared to the initial setup, with less sharp cable turns - poorly designed entry/exit points of the shift cable that made it rub against them instead of freely sliding - inadequate ferrules at the end of the cable housing - extreme entry/exit angles of the cables, making them rub against the surface of the entry/exit points On that note, Jagwire Pro Slick cables work wonders on any mechanical gear or brake system, as they are stainless, polished and a tiny bit thinner than regular cables. They drastically reduce the friction in the system, especially when used with compressionless housings and good quality ferrules (like those made by Jagwire).

[@rottenhells]

100% agree on this as a bike mechanic. I highly doubt the bb cable guide is causing the poor shifting performance. Never saw a new one doing so. Hope no one falls for the poor advice of this vid.

[@MrLitze]

Very good points

[@michaelmechex]

Yes, this is the way to go! I've had great experience with this method. I've found that those transitions introduce more friction than a proper length of cable housing. Also weatherproofing is greatly improved. For the rattling, Jagwire makes an 'Internal Housing Damper', which is quite expensive for a foam tube, but it's small and easy to install, weighs next to nothing and works perfectly.

[@Joecagar]

Great as always Luke. Personally I'm trying to avoid PTFE lubes and fluoro chems in my bike products. Kind of mad we're worried about forever chemicals in the environment and also buying lubricants that contain them and wash off in the rain 🫠🥖

[@Beesno]

100% this. We need to outlaw PTFE in a hurry.

[@jackleville546]

Yep, PTFE = "Teflon"

[@cpopte]

..... yeah....you are clueless....

[@MB-ek1ub]

👍🏻 Doing this for years on my MTB. Closed housing also means less entry points for water and dirt to enter the cable housing.

[@neilgubbins]

Saw you at Langford village shops this morning. I said to the wife. "I know that guy" I knew he lived in Oxfordshire but didn't realise so close. 😂😂👌🏻

[@juanmiguelalejandrino]

Friction is ok, it won't affect shifting accuracy. What you eliminated is the flex of that cable guide. as the cables are tensioned due to the pull, that plastic guide flex which greatly affects shifting. That's why the problem only happens on the first few cogs then it disappears when you reach the bigger ones. It's because the plastic has reached its maximum flex. The next problem if you did not perform that hack is that plastic guide will eventually break. We had the same thing on our Canyon Frames.

[@MichielvanderMeulen]

Friction is a major factor in shifting accuracy, as it increases the forces, and that leads to parts of the system flexing more.

[@stevenr5149]

Great hack. 👍 I used it on a mountain bike with the cable liner alone. You might not need to drill a larger hole with the inner cable liner AND the liner may be thin enough to place the cable in the original guide. So glad my cables are external. I do try to avoid the forever lubes though. Find us some great PTFE-free eco lubes!

[@wilsistermans1118]

The main friction point is the plastic guide beneath the bracket. On my wife bicycle I put some teflon tubes over the cables. I had these teflon tubes laying around from my 3D printer. You can also use pieces of cable housing only to guide the cable around the bracket. Teflon tube make changing gears very smooth, but they don't last as long as outer casing.

[@tmayberry7559]

I'll keep my external cable routing thank you very much 😊

[@thrawed]

At 6:30 you're kind of describing the jagwire elite sealed system, which has a similar liner that runs continuously throughout and solves all the problems you described.

[@iane2983]

To fix the issue of inner liners sliding you can use a pick, heat it up and then use it to flare the end which should keep it in place where you insert the liner. I tried the full cable housing but the bend going up to the front derailleur was causing too much friction. You can buy specific inner cable liner which are thicker and more slick than those plastic tube cabling guides.

[@GeoffTripoli]

Did the same thing on my Cannondale Topstone (Aluminum) because it had an exposed cable on chainstay and it would get dirty over time, requiring more maintenance. With a full run of housing I haven’t had to touch it in a couple years.

[@ohwhoaitzjoe]

If you’re gonna run the cable housing through the entire bike, there is foam housing that goes over the cable housing that reduces rattling. What’s nice is that at the derailleur end you can have it pole out of the back to cover that hole and prevent anything from getting in. It’s doesn’t weigh much either. And it also makes pushing replacement cable housing easier in the future.

[@bartjager2901]

I used the jagwire liners through my frame (105)! Works like a charm! For my gravel frame (grx 820) I used outer cables through the frame (fully internal) and that works extremely well! A bit more responsive for the grx groupset but that could also be the quality of the groupset itself...

[@MichielvanderMeulen]

Running only a complete inner liner from front to back helps keep the cable clean, without the weight penalty.

[@123moof]

I did with with am XC MTB, which stupidly had exposed cable under the BB. Sure enough it picked up gunk and shifting went to garbage. Drilled the stops and ran a continuous run. It's been trouble free since. Adding the foam outer inside the downtube eliminates rattles.

[@michaelbradbrook9575]

Hi Luke, I did this hack on my ICAN X-Gravel and it has vastly improved the shifting. I have the 11-speed Sensah SRX groupset and the shifting up in 9-10-11 gears had been slow, but now it is crisp and fast. I needed to drill out the frame stop, and I used a foam liner to prevent the outer from rattling. 🥖🥖I also have a hack for you to try🥖🥖 I used a 10mm washer to on the derailleur hanger to shift the mech out a couple of mm, which effectively increases the spring tension 🥖🥖

[@Local.hero.1983]

On some frames the rear brake hose cover is big enough to bodge it to get rear full length outer in there along with brake hose, saves drilling frame.

[@alexwang3854]

To reduce the rattling, you can try to sleeve the housing with foam tube from the BB cable guide port. Or from the head tube before setting the fork in. That's what I did for my TFSA/Trifox X16 QR equvalent.

[@LukeRichardson1981]

I did this on my Waltly custom Ti bike when I was still running mechanical Ultegra on it. I didn't even realize that people ran naked cables through their inner routed bikes - I thought everyone used full housing! Shifting was great, of course, as I was using Jagwire cables and housing. I've since switched to 105 Di2, though.

[@likemarksee]

Giant Trinity is like that, but my propel which is similar to your bike, doesn’t have continuous cable housing and it still shifts perfectly. A hack to stop cable rattling (if you can get inside the frame) is to install tie wraps around the housing; the long cable tie ends will act as flexible stand offs, so the cable housing is not against the frame.

[@daniellarson3068]

Maybe - They could just route the cables in air outside the frame supported infrequently with some sort of standoffs. This would eliminate friction as a major portion of the cables would only pass through air.

[@patthewoodboy]

genius idea , how did you think of that

[@BCRUK]

They could also make them slotted so you could pop the cable out and lubricate it!?

[@not-a-raccoon]

😳🤯🤯🤯

[@sless6928]

The cable outer doesn't just provide a clean, low friction path for the cable inner to move in, it provides a constant length for the cable to operate in and is opposing the tension applied to the cable. It operates in compression when tension is applied to the inner. As such it needs to be longitudinally rigid, the main reason for the steel armour. This is why barrel adjusters work. Every time a junction is introduced a small amount of longitudinal play is introduced into the outer system. When the outer is terminated somewhere along its length such as for internal routing, the frame and end stops take over the function of providing a fixed length route for the cable. They also operate in compression when tension is applied to the cable, but are probably less effective due to flexing of the frame and end stops while riding. Having a continuous cable outer along the entire length of the system not only minimizes contaminants being introduced, it allows the cable outer to provide an optimal opposing force against the cable tension, a job which it is very good at doing.

[@hardcheese]

Recently had issue with the rear frame bung failing and the cable housing pushed into the frame. This looks like a much better option.

[@scherzo0o]

Nice video, thanks for the suggestion! Alternative approach: what about trying to reduce the friction under the BB as much as possible? Grease that plastic slot with PTFE lube, and after that apply some duct tape over the plastic slot to protect it from dirt. Other solution: some graphite in the slot (simply - take a pen and "write" with it on those slots until a serios layer of carbon is deposited where the un-housed cables go.) This suggestion is borrowed from electric guitars, where you want your strings to move as easily as possible through the nut :) :) :) The standard solution there is with the pen.

[@Atari_Vrc]

I think the 12s is more sensitive too. Atleast thats my experience upgrading an old type of Fatbike carbon frame to 12s. It has framestops and an internal tube for the wire. My easiest solution is just to epoxy cable holders to the frame. I just havent got around to it yet. Thank you

[@doesitgame]

The rubber o-ring you find in a lot of the housing ferrules adds an enormous amount of drag, so just cutting those out helps immensely. And you can always dunk the nylon BB guide in a hot mix of paraffin and WS2. Nice and slick then!

[@ivanjednobiegowiec7656]

Also, top tip for replacement of whole housing. Use double ended, screw type barbs (???) like ones added to RS Reverb servicing kit. Screw one end into old housing, other end into new one and just pull the length of housing through the frame without fishing it through the holes and bends. I guess a piece of right diameter, small threaded bolt will do the same trick.

[@stvaldr]

My Look bike had similar problem. I installed Ultegra 11 speed and the cable from the rear derailleur rubber stop would get sucked into the frame, so we decided to go with the full housing, and it worked perfectly. I do not think it was just using lower end equipment. 🥖🥖🥖🥖🥖

[@LM42]

In the UK , PTFE has been removed from GT85

[@amoondre]

My Argon18 Nitrogen uses the same method - continuous run of cable housing all the way to the rear stay and the shifting is immaculate. Also, the replacement is a bit easier, compared to my other bike where it runs the cable naked through the frame.

[@ManuelPerezBlanco]

Hi Luke, following your channel since 2020, let's gooooo! 🥖🥖🥖🥖

[@edulpn]

There are foam jackets (like miniature pool noodles) you can run your housing inside and they help a bunch with housing rattling noises inside the frame. When I bought my Aliexpress magnetic routing kit there was a variant of the product that included some of that foam jackets.

[@avocette]

From my experience as a bike mechanic, only do this when interrupted housing cable routing has a cable guide in bends (like the one in the BB) as those notoriously suck. In most interrupted routing where it's just two parallel housing stops and the exposed cable is in a straight line, it has considerably less friction than a full-length housing. Granted, they need more maintenance, but nothing much other than a quick spritz of silicon lube inside the segments of housing to keep them fresh and longer lasting.

[@maxpetification]

that's why you add foam tubes outside the lines so it can't rattle

[@bsowhat]

This is what we do in the MTB world to avoid rattles.

[@philoso377]

Excellent idea. What about water ingress, trapped to rust and friction problem?

[@joshuabuilds3051]

Internal cable routing often has the housing segmented at the rear dropout and there is a special internal ferrule that comes out when you're doing roadside maintenance and gets lost in the grass. Instead of getting a new special ferrule, just run housing through the entire frame and you will notice an improvement in shifting. Even with ultegra r8000

[@fentuz]

Yep, i found the same shifting improvement on sram rival moving from a inner routed carbon frame to a partially outer routed metallic frame To avoid the noise of the housing slap, i put 2 small cable tie on the house to keep the housing in tension and avoid loose slapping.

[@CraigHERITAGE]

Hi i have used this method for a number of years , best hack is to use the BBB speedwire cable with a rteflon covering , slightly expensive at 8 euros but well worth it for a buttery shift

[@d9dga]

If anyone is worried about noise or jangling about, from the cable housing inside the frame... You can get some foam tubing specifically for the housing. Yes its another thing to put inside the frame, but it makes a big difference

[@seanbarman]

You can use Fibrax ultralight gear cable outer that uses aluminum rather than steel cable

[@Technotranceism]

Luke, if the liquid lubricant doesn't hold up, they make grease injection syringes, for housed cables. Inject grease down either one end, or both ends, and your cable will hold up longer, and run smoothly. 🥖🥖

[@nickwoods5150]

Been doing this for years, only way to go. No need to spray stuff inside the cable if you’re using a decent grease when you thread the cable.

[@Bikey_McBeardface]

If you are getting rattle, you can buy dampening/silencing foam sleeve that sits on the outside of the cable housing/hydro hoses, I pretty much fit it is as standard on a build these days. Don't be temped to use packing foam as a free alternative because it squeaks like a million mice in your down tube (speaking from experience).

[@XXXENOWRAITHXX]

Hey Luke I would love to see you build a fully internal hydraulic mechanical bike to compare the shifting performance between full internal and non- full internal.

[@jlatnyc]

I usually use the plastic insert on exposed cable under BB and add about 6 inches on both sides. Also on the exposed FD cable also about 6 in past the routing under the BB

[@francisville4132]

When the bonus clip (dodododoooodoooo)was so good that it became a whole new video ❤

[@markusseppala6547]

I always thought the less outer cable the less friction. Then I got a gravel frame that I had to use full length housings and the shifting is really smooth. Good quality cables and housings help too.

[@ondmedai5417]

How can you do that on the front? If you Drill the stop you dont have a stop at all

[@squee666]

Small update for you Luke, GT85 Removed PTFE (teflon) from their sprays this year so you can get it anymore other than old stock

[@CannondaleCAAD]

Add a little bit of Drislide and it will shift even better. Its what I use at the shop I work at. Clean and dry lubricant

[@MrMattie725]

My 2020 Orbea Orca Aero seems to have some kind of semi transparent tubing at the bottom. It also has quite a fancy metal frame stop box at the top of the downtube!

[@georgekrpan3181]

You could use a two sided ferule and replace only the Bowden loop.

[@znicho]

Once the outer housing is through the frame, it makes changing inner cable regularly so much easier.

[@richiejames928]

Any breaks or transitions in the cable outer just allows moisture and dirt in causing crap shifting quicker than it should. full cable outta front controls to mechs for years or smooth trouble free shifting 👌🏻

[@yapMY]

slick lube liner instead of a nylon tube might help in this case.

[@mickchaganis6607]

I did that a couple of years ago with my Planet X Ec 130 but boy did it rattle. The other thing I did was dip my cables in ptfe powder that I bought for chain waxing, this worked really well. 🥖🥖🥖

[@chinabicycle]

I always do solid wiring on all my bikes, so it doesn 't get clogged with dirt and the cable slides better in a shirt

[@randynienhuis9573]

I used the jagwire cable with the polished inner cable. Works way better and longer then ptfe lube

[@raumo123]

4:27 another option, wrap a couple of layers of vulcanizing rubber tape around the cable.

[@Lexicaltje]

Luke it would be really awesome if you did a multi-part series doing a detailed bike build from AliExpress parts. I’d love to build up my own bike but I haven’t ever done it before. Just a thought 😊

[@MacNeilR]

FYI, a good quality shifter cable won't need replacement for a very long time (up to a decade even under very high shifting) if it is run continuously and is of the correct length.

[@dominicbritt]

A lot of bikes with Bottom Bracket cable guides have very smooth frictionless shifting - it may not be the solution for a lot of bikes and I suspect your friction may have been in the cable path somewhere like shifter bar bands etc.... MTBers have done this for a long time because it prevents grit from fouling cables...it can be a be a flamin' nightmare on road bikes with tricked internal routing setups - drill at your own risk...

[@donaldrieger381]

For the rear, could you splice two pieces of outer housing together just after it exits the frame so you can just replace that short piece of housing and leave the long chunk in the frame?

[@galenkehler]

That frame isnt designed for non-continuous cable run. If they included that kind of cable stop thats a mistake. You can see this in the angle of how the cable goes through the dropout, as well as the under BB guide being oversized to fit 4-5mm outers. The fact that you had all that friction beforehand is just because you were never supposed to run interrupted cable outers in the first place.

[@LawrenceMacMacster]

In theory exposed cables have less friction than a full housing from end to end, in practice ferrules & angled cuts, even plastic ones create a lot of friction, especially with dust and dirt getting in from the cuts... We don't live in a lab.

[@NeoPayneHK]

06:50 with the right size of the nylon tube / liner, you can fix it on shimano cable stop (which has tongue)

[@josecamilojimenez2784]

Actually some of the frames come like this out of the factory, mine (an aliexpress gravel aluminium frame), comes with holes to use the entire cable hose from top to bottom and it works great, i have an LTwoo rx 12 system and works great, the only issue is that from my experience the LTwoo shifters start to deteriorate in terms of shifting to early; i have been riding my setup for 2 years now and i have to do maintenance to the shifters twice, the good part is that the mechanism is simple to dissasamble and is independent of the brake line, so it's easy, and it's just a matter of degrease, new grease, new cable and reinstall

[@ЯрославЛихачев-ф3д]

Hi! Thanks for the review! Can we expect your opinion about ltwoo ER9 2024? I mean "blue edition", looks promising!

[@estelja]

Segmented system with full length liner but as little housing as possible (use stops and run liner full length). Jagwire 31 strand slick cables, installed dry with graphite powder as the lube. Nothing slicker. The RISK brand from Aliexpress or original Nokon system are good choices.

[@jedunboxing4127]

I didnt even know the casing is terminated on road bikes with the stop 😂 I always install the whole housing inside the frame 😮

[@christophervergara2962]

Hey! great tips... just a question: how do you prevent the "frame stop" from popping out the frame? I have a Trifox X10 and everytime I turn my handlebar to the left, the "frame stop" for the brake line pops outs. I tried sticking it with black electrical tape (hahaha) but the solution only lasted for around 10 minutes (hahaha). Have you ever experienced that problem? If you have any hack or special configuration I would really apreciate it, since it is particulary anoying. Cheers from Chile ✌

[@pastelink6767]

They make foam covers for the cable housing so it doesn't rattle.

[@the.25.dreamer]

You could used PTFE tube under the bottom bracket instead of running a cable all the way down through the frame...

[@kirynkokos5751]

I wonder if injecting some fluid into the Teflon tube reduces friction or increases it?

[@stennan]

I use lock oil/lube (which have PTFE) in my wire housing. Works like a charm, but it is very viscous.

[@laneromel5667]

Any time you put a fluid in a cable housing you are creating the potential for hydraulic lock. What I do is spray my cables with graphite, let the cables dry then put cables in the housing.

[@ross__mcl]

any sign of the new ltwoo electronic groupset?

[@vidiia]

This, of course, also means you can replace inner cables without any of the faff of internal routing. Best of both worlds. However, these will be harder to clean out than the first system if the cables gum up.

[@valderja]

GT85 is lovely stuff. 👌🏼

[@NP13000]

My boi really made a whole video out of his last bonus clip Still insta liked before even watching 🥖🥖🥖

[@altern8tive]

Welcome to a hack from 90s mountain biking :D

[@shanold7681]

It looks like it though i don't know for sure. But it looks the like cable housing is lined with ptfe tubing in the center. It looks the the same material that 3d printers use and that is ptfe tubing.

[@t.g7383]

for lubing cables light grease like Sram Butter/Slickoleum is good, works better than oil or "ptfe" stuff RSP Slick Kick would also be okay for that use case

[@ooOMauJOoo]

Hi, what china website and recommended Gravel Frameset is good and quality? Thanks

[@Hatchet898]

What size bit do you use to drill the stops out?

[@qwertyazerty2137]

Regarding the return spring I say it's quite the opposite. I struggled to adjust the reae derailleur in my ltwoo GR9 groupset and I couldn't get it shift precisely alrhough running the cable fully in housing I tried three different GR9 derailleurs to no avail. All of them generated a lot of resistance on the cable pull. When I swapped the rd for shimano grx 812 I noticed immediately the lower resistance and I could set it up properly. It is still not perfect. there is still much resistance compared to e.g. my Tiagra 4700 or Ultegra 6800 groupsets and there's no way you could race with these brifters because they are not precise enough but it's much better than with factory gr9 derailleur. I think the issue is also with the spool mechanism of the brifter and the angle at which the cable is being spooled in. All in all I believe that the weaker the return/jockey Cage spring, the easier and smoother the shifting.

[@rosserobertolli]

"Mountainbikes have been set up this way for years"... I am always amazed that roadies are much more concerned about weight than mtb-ers. Mountainbiking is a much more dynamic sport, up and down all the time, throwing the thing in the corners and flying through the air with the lump of weight hanging on for dear life by the cleats. So I'd say the outer cable housing is well worth the 'penalty' on a road bike, nice vid

[@shrekidkwhattoname3848]

What do you think about the new gravel drivetrain of microshift sword?

[@martinbichler7089]

Both WD-40 and GT85 (whether PTFE is included or not) contain mineral spirits for cleaning. Many people out there believe that it is not a good product to use on bikes for the degreasing effect? Why don't you apply a light grease to the cable and inside of the housing?

[@dongbagamasbad]

Do you think the sroad cassette will have a better compatibility with the wheeltop eds rd?

[@peterlewis2255]

I've bought two new frames with semi-internal routing recently: one CF and one Ti. First thing I did with both before any other build activity was to check the cable routing - and both could cope with gear and brake outer housing along full length without any mods at all. Extra weight of housing is negligible (compared with extra weight of the user - :) )

[@-Gothicgirl-]

Mmh a trick could be on the bottom plastic part what you mention. Take a inner tube of the housing an position it on the cable on that part. That inner tube is Teflon and should have the same improvement but only need that little part. And no it stays on place. I use that Methode long time and you can fill that little tube with grease

[@Xayuap]

¿can't you use a pulley under the bottom bracket?

[@Lazy_Jay_Racing]

I have this set-up on my Cube cross bike but the shifting is still absolutely useless! The cable doesn't release immediately so up shifts are really slow to happen

[@chrisdarke]

Hahaha whats the chances? I was just recabling my bike I noticed that I had a spare framestop that has the holes drilled out to allow for this, and it wasn't till I had already routed the brake hose through so carried on as normal but its in my 'todo list' for doing this next time I redo the cabling.. so yeah, check if you have spare framestops that are pre-drilled... also you can use foam tubes to silence the hoses.. good to know that it will make a difference! One thing I do need to bear in mind is the outer exit point for the FD, as its a grx one it might need to seat at the FD itself.

[@xhrrdg]

Housing might rattle against frame.

[@benjamindejarnette5714]

What rear cassette are you using now?