Hello all. I’m new to cycling. I came home yesterday from a ride and noticed this cable tip is almost gone.
I will take it to my local shop in a few hours, but just wanted a heads up and advise, does this kind of problem take long to solve? 🙁 . This is a Merida Scultura 100. Is there any info I could give to the mechanic that will be useful for him or her?
by apoptosis100
9 Comments
Easy but temporary solution: Cut it off flush with the derailer and leave it like that until you need to replace the cable. Or just replace the cable. This job takes maybe 10 minutes, probably less.
>does this kind of problem take long to solve?
Actual working time for the job will be between 30 to 60 minutes. The steel cable must be replaced and the front derailleur tuned. Front derailleur tuning after cable replacenet takes only a couple minutes. But to replace the cable will almost certainly require access to the cable housing underneath your handlebar tape, so that handlebar tape most likely will need to be removed and retaped. You might be able to keep the old bar tape, but just as likely you need to buy new bar tape. And if the shop is going through all that trouble, they might decide it’s time to put in new cable housing as well, which requires that housing to be properly sized, cut, finished, and installed; most new bikes have the cable housing way too long in my experience, so simply cutting the housing to match the old lengths isn’t always optimal.
>Is there any info I could give to the mechanic that will be useful for him or her?
Nope. There is zero useful info you can offer. The problem and solution are both obvious from looking at your bike for 30 seconds. Obviously, if your bike has other issues, let the shop know.
This is a quick repair and if it takes 30 min then someone is justifying their cost for repair. I am more interested in why the installation sticker is still on the front derailleur?
It’s a quick job, as mentioned. However it is important to try and understand if something caused this or it’s pure metal fatigue.
If you crashed, lean the bike on the front derailleur for long time, have dogs with a metal apetite, etc it can be valuable to provide that info.
It shouldn’t really fray like that but it’s not out of this realm if it’s just wear either.
There isn’t really any reason to get this fixed immediately. It’s just an excess bit of cable. You could ride your bike for *years* without this becoming an issue.
It’s just a bit of excess cable so I would just cut it off and call it a day. Replace the cable if you start having front shifting issues that cant be solved with minor adjustments. You’ll need to replace the cable the next time the front derailleur needs to come off, but that might not happen for a very long time.
Should be $25-$30 and take 10 minutes at a shop. Maybe a little more if they replace housing at the same time. Looks new-ish to me, if it were my own bike I would just replace the cable.
Kinda looks like your bike is practically brand new! It’s still got the orange sticker on the front mech that the mechanic is supposed to remove. I’d give the shop you bought it from a call, I’m sure they’d happily help you out!
It will work perfectly fine if you cut it back, but a frayed cable is bound to start coming undone eventually. Right now the only thing keeping it from fraying more is the cable anchor bolt.
Ride it until it stops shifting, then replace it.