Cable Barrel Adjuster

litespeedguy said:

While stretching and then anchoring a new derailleur cable should the barrel adjuster be set all the way in, all out, or somewhere in the middle ? or doesn't it matter where it's set at ?

Personally, I rotate the barrels all the way in and then back it out about a turn or turn and a half. That way if the cables are initially too tight, I have a little wiggle room, but plenty of room to allow for housing compression. On one of my bikes, I set it up without barrels (Cannondale-Record- Nokons), and to be honest it's fine. It took a couple times on the stand to get fully dialed in, but after that, no worries.

PeterF said:

Personally, I rotate the barrels all the way in and then back it out about a turn or turn and a half. That way if the cables are initially too tight, I have a little wiggle room, but plenty of room to allow for housing compression. On one of my bikes, I set it up without barrels (Cannondale-Record- Nokons), and to be honest it's fine. It took a couple times on the stand to get fully dialed in, but after that, no worries.

thanks Peter !!

PeterF said:

Personally, I rotate the barrels all the way in and then back it out about a turn or turn and a half. That way if the cables are initially too tight, I have a little wiggle room, but plenty of room to allow for housing compression. On one of my bikes, I set it up without barrels (Cannondale-Record- Nokons), and to be honest it's fine. It took a couple times on the stand to get fully dialed in, but after that, no worries.

+1.

artemidorus said:

+1.

+1 ????????????

litespeedguy said:

+1 ????????????

+1 just means that he agrees with the PeterF. Now since I also agree with PeterF, I would put either +1 or +2. You'll catch on. I have been a member of this forum for over a year and I still have problems figuring out what some of the acronyms mean🙄 .

PeterF said:

Personally, I rotate the barrels all the way in and then back it out about a turn or turn and a half. That way if the cables are initially too tight, I have a little wiggle room, but plenty of room to allow for housing compression. On one of my bikes, I set it up without barrels (Cannondale-Record- Nokons), and to be honest it's fine. It took a couple times on the stand to get fully dialed in, but after that, no worries.

+3 🙂 My frame was set up by the builder without barrel adjusters as well. He assured me I wouldn't need them; they are just extra hardware to cause problems. In 16K miles, the only cable adjustment needed was after the initial break in, about 600 miles.

If you change rear wheels a lot the barrels could have some merit, but honestly, even on the bike that has them, I never use them. Whenever I re-cable a bike though, my first couple rides are usually solo, as I work out the kinks, I just like puting the bike on the stand and making sure the alignment is perfect, rather than trusting the barrels on the fly. I have these inline barrel things from Jagwire that I bought, but they never came out of the box. Just didn't feel like working them into the Nokon's. Re nokon's: they're ok, but a pain to install. They don't compress like regular housing per se, but allow for a couple 100 miles for all the beads and ferrules and liners to work themselves into position a bit. Once in place they are nice (but not really worth the money in my .02).