What causes gear cables to snap?

Stephen said:

Looks like there is a serious kink near where you change the gears and down
near the rear cassete it looks like half of the cable has snapped - there
are lots of loose wires sticking out though there is still some cable left
At the time it broke I wasnt doing anything stupid just going home from
work. This is the cable that has been replaced too

So there's a kink in the cable housing where it connects to the
rear derailleur (the little loop right at the back of the bike)?
Or do you mean the kink is up near the gear levers ?

The housing can do a tight curve - but at no point should
there be a kink in it. They also need to be lubricated, but
I can't see that causing the cable to wear through - there's
not sand or something down inside, wearing it out ?

I'd replace all the housing and the cable along where it breaking.
When doing so, check (or ask the LBS to check) that it isn't rubbing
on the cable guides etc. I would use the best quality cables I
could buy, which will cost less than $15 (prob. less than $12).
(not counting specialised non-steel (kevlar? etc.) cables)
The biggest cost in replacing cables & housing is purchasing
the bloody circualar cable cutters, maybe you could use something
else, but be careful not to crush the housing.

Quoted message said:

The bike is a $600 hardrock specialized and I'm having more trouble with
this then my second hand barracuda avanti (snapped the spokes 3 or 4 times
broke the cables twice)

I broke lots of spokes on my new ($1k) bike, at the time I probably
weighed about 103kg. IMHO: On alot of bikes you get machine built
wheels, and if you're up near 3-digit weight (I'm about 95kg at the moment
too) they just can't handle it. I had new wheels hand-built - perhaps I
would have only needed a rear wheel, since that's where all the spokes
broke. But we wanted to go touring, and I didn't want to be replacing
spokes every other day, and I'm not very good at it, so it wouldn't belong
before the wheel required re-truing. Anyway, so got some new wheels, and
never snapped a spoke since (well there was once, but that was for a
different reason, and it was 7 at once).

Quoted message said:

How much would decent mountain bike wheels cost roughly btw??

Don't forget you can re-use your hubs. I'd get eyeletted rims
(stronger) and heavy-gague spokes, something like Swiss-DTs.
You could probably even re-use your rims too.

Adam at Cheeky Monkey made us some beautiful wheels for the tandem,
if you're in Sydney, you could do worse than send him and email.
http://www.cheekymonkey.com.au Our other wheels (700C) were built
by Hadley Cycles in Newcastle.

cheers,
-kt

--
Kingsley Turner,
(mailto: [email hidden])
http://MadDogsBreakfast.com/ABFAQ - news:aus.bicycle Frequenly Asked Questions

Quoted message said:

So there's a kink in the cable housing where it connects to the
rear derailleur (the little loop right at the back of the bike)?
Or do you mean the kink is up near the gear levers ?

there is a kink near the ger levers
thats where it snapped last time too

Quoted message said:

The housing can do a tight curve - but at no point should
there be a kink in it. They also need to be lubricated, but
I can't see that causing the cable to wear through - there's
not sand or something down inside, wearing it out ?

I'd replace all the housing and the cable along where it breaking.
When doing so, check (or ask the LBS to check) that it isn't rubbing
on the cable guides etc. I would use the best quality cables I
could buy, which will cost less than $15 (prob. less than $12).
(not counting specialised non-steel (kevlar? etc.) cables)
The biggest cost in replacing cables & housing is purchasing
the bloody circualar cable cutters, maybe you could use something
else, but be careful not to crush the housing.

They were replaced with $6.00 ones. I didnt ask them to use better ones I
thought they would pick resonable quality ones.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

The bike is a $600 hardrock specialized and I'm having more trouble with
this then my second hand barracuda avanti (snapped the spokes 3 or 4

times

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

broke the cables twice)

Don't forget you can re-use your hubs. I'd get eyeletted rims
(stronger) and heavy-gague spokes, something like Swiss-DTs.
You could probably even re-use your rims too.

Adam at Cheeky Monkey made us some beautiful wheels for the tandem,
if you're in Sydney, you could do worse than send him and email.
http://www.cheekymonkey.com.au Our other wheels (700C) were built
by Hadley Cycles in Newcastle.

Thanks for the link will send them an email eventually

Stephen Nixon

turns out that it was a faulty outer cable?? and it was replaced since it
was less then a month old
Stephen