Singletrack

Internal Operation
Dave Boffey
For Room 101 I’d like to nominate internally routed cabling.
Whoever thought of this needs a hoof in the slats. Yes, it looks
nice and pretty on your new factory assembled bike, where
they’ve had access all areas and there are no parts hanging off
it. Fast forward a couple of years and it’s shabby shifting or
a change of brakes. This is when it all goes sadly – badly –
wrong. You lose yourself in the shed working on all manner of
ways to thread cables into strangely shaped tubes, past pivots,
and taping bits to pull through the fresh lines. Arghh! Four
bloody hours of my life down the drain. Bring back external
routing and zip ties. All is forgiven.
Charlie says:
Thank you for your contribution. As a cycle shop keeper I
understand what you are going through, and it’s even worse
when you are trying to make money. A £12 cable swap and
gear tune that should take ten minutes becomes an hour of
progressively angry frustration, culminating in the swearing,
the tool throwing, and using Gary Fisher’s name in vain.
So it’s better to have the workings of a bicycle on the
outside is it? Let’s apply this theory to the human body. So we
run the veins and sticky stuff down the outside of our legs.
Imagine the screams as spurting blood vessels cover the gorse
heath in gore. Mountain bikers would have to wear full metal
armour protection over their innards, and hell… we would
just look so damned weird and ugly.
Having said that… The clean sleek lines of an internally
routed bike are not worth the long-term troubles. It’s a vanity
project cooked up by someone who designs stuff, but never
has to deal with the consequences.
‘Infernal’ routing can go straight to Room 101. But you
do need to know about the Park Tool IR-1.2.
Charlie says:
I must add that I am thoroughly enjoying my overlord position
with Room 101. So please email editorial@singletrackworld.com
with your suggestions... what grinds your gears, flicks your plums,
and needs to be banished to Room 101. What have you got for
me? There’ll be Bum Butter for successful submissions.