Help - Snapped rear gear cable (need to get home!)

[Dr Murdoch]

Near the end of my commute in this morning, my rear gears started faffing about. Wouldn't drop from the middle of the cassette to the smallest gear/cog? Arrived at work and had a look, and as I was trying to figure out what was happening the cable snapped. On the plus side, the chain will now go to the smallest cog/gear!

Ive got a halfords over the road from my office, I can replace the cable but will it take ages to get the gears and levers synced?

[jockinthebox]

20 mins tops for a decent bike mechanic, 30/45mins for somebody who fettles their own bikes

[Pothole]

Surely Halfords have a resident wage slave for that?

[Dr Murdoch]

Pothole said:

Surely Halfords have a resident wage slave for that?

I am rather tight though! If I can do it myself I would prefer to.

[dontlookdown]

YouTube. Park Tools videos are good. Indexing is nothing like as scary as it seems, provided you do it methodically and don't just start randomly twiddling limit screws and adjusters. V satisfying too.

[budgie smuggler]

If it's just the cable, then indexing is easy, you just need to put the new cable at the same point as the old one was before it snapped.

Can be a bit of a git getting the cable out of/into the shifter though (depending on what shifter it is).

You'll need pliers, screwdrivers, a cable cutter and a few hexkeys. Given your lack of experience, if you have the opportunity to let halfords sort it, i'd do that. I don't mean any offence by that, just that better to pay over the top money and get home rather than a long walk.

[TwistingMyMelon]

You can probably do it roughly OK and have a couple of gears to use, thats what I did , it got me home. I dont touch gears.

The risk is that the mech could bend and worse case scenario would be the mech throw itself if gears if you get it wrong/force shifter etc

Id beg halfords to have a go tbh, wont be much money

[Dr Murdoch]

Thanks chaps

Yup I'm only armed with allen keys, tyre levers and a chain splitter, even the A-Team might struggle changing a cable with those.

Ive left it with Halfords, seems like the cable snapped in the levers. Bugger.

Hopefully they'll be able to get it sorted before 5pm, otherwise Mrs M is on standby for a rescue mission.

[The_Jackal]

It really is a simple job, you are worrying over nothing.
You main problem is if Halfords bullst you and forget about it.

[TwistingMyMelon]

its simple if you've done it before, have the tools and stand

When your brain is fked from a week of work and you want to get home its a different story for me at least. Also there could be a reason why it snapped in the first place, such as broken shifter/dodgy guide etc so good to get it looked at if you arent sure . Ive bodged cables before only to have a shifter then snap on me , which was a pricey morning!

Im sure Halfords will be OK, hit and miss, should be fine.

[Dr Murdoch]

Mrs M to the rescue

Halfords just called and apparently they will need to take the lever apart to remove the frayed cable, which has split.

So i'm just going to get it back home and look at it over the weekend, thanks for your help (although I might be back on here if I bugger the repair!)

[anonymous-user]

Not as big a job as Halfords are making out imo

Pull the old cable through from the rear mech end and fish out the other bit with needle nose pliers or jiggle it a bit

feed new cable in from lever end

connect up and adjust rear mech

dab of superglue on the cable to stop fraying at the point you are going to cut it off

cut cable

job jobbed

[HardtopManual]

Halfords are taking the piss. Cut the cable at the downtube and pull the now not-frayed cable out of the shifter. Pull the other end from the rear mech. Feed in new cable, secure to rear mech, trim and index.

[gazza285]

HardtopManual said:

Halfords are taking the piss. Cut the cable at the downtube and pull the now not-frayed cable out of the shifter. Pull the other end from the rear mech. Feed in new cable, secure to rear mech, trim and index.

How exactly do you do that when the cable has broken and frayed inside the shifter? It is not a two minute job removing the nipple and frayed cable from the shifter, especially if it has aero cabling under the bar tape.

The shifter doesn’t need a full strip down, but it can still be an awkward job.

[Tabs]

I had the same problem last week. Cable on road bike lever frayed within the shifter, so couldn't get the lever in position to withdraw the nipple. Had to remove tape and lever to allow access with tweezers to fish the cable out. Took me 2 hours.

[Dr Murdoch]

OP here.

Fixed it
.

Yup had to take bar tape and lever off to open up the lever. With hindsight I might not have needed to do that. At least I now know how the levers work, so next time I might try moving the hoods and trying to keep it all together.

Thanks for all the replies!

[yellowjack]

Dr Murdoch said:

OP here.

Fixed it
.

Yup had to take bar tape and lever off to open up the lever. With hindsight I might not have needed to do that. At least I now know how the levers work, so next time I might try moving the hoods and trying to keep it all together.

Thanks for all the replies!

I've had similar on an ebay bike I bought. Not a snapped cable, but bent/kinked in the shifter housing. That meant it wasn't paying out correctly when shifting, so restricted the number of gears available at the cassette. That one was a bh to fish out of the shifter too, as the cable had also "jumped" out of the ratchet guide. Getting the cable out of the shifter was the hardest part of the job, with the indexing of the new cable being relatively simple when done methodically. I managed to not need to remove the shifter from the handlebar, but then it was an old Shimano 105 9-speed shifter so perhaps a different design to something rather more modern...