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Damaged Bowden Cable

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Road Cycling
Published
12 January 2006
Last activity
14 January 2006
Original author
Email address hidden
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4
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Single-speed and fixed-gear

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  1. Original post
    Email address hidden
    Archived post
    #1

    Happily, that was all it was.

    But I can't figure out how the heck I done it.

    The bike was fine last night. The bicyclist wasn't but the bike was.
    I know it was shifting okay because I was spending a lot of time
    shifting back and forth and back and forth and seriously loving my
    brakes.

    They didn't even bother posting a grade sign if it wasn't at least 10%
    and as far as I'm concerned if you have to stand up on the pedals to
    get 4kph and the only reason you aren't walking is because you think
    stopping to dismount might result in losing control and rolling
    backwards it is not a 10% grade! Same goes for when you've got your
    brakes squeezed down to the max and are still nearing 20kph on a
    descent. With blind curves.

    I hate to think what it might have been like if I'd crossed the border
    at Pingxiang instead of Dongxing. The road from Pingxiang is marked as
    mountainous. This one wasn't.

    Anyways, I know my bike was fine.

    But this morning, after the saga of the missing glove was resolved I
    headed off in the general direction of Hanoi (very vague and very
    general since I'm ahead of schedule again) the bike decided it didn't
    want to be in a low gear. It wanted to be in a high gear. I've got
    more luggage weight than bike weight and I wanted a low gear.

    But it wouldn't shift.

    A local bike shop with some clue about derailleurs but no clue about
    shifters that were a part of the brakes diagnosed the problem as being
    somewhere in there. And they helped me cobble together a fix which at
    least let me ride the bike as a single speed. We couldn't quite
    managed to manually retension the cable (using rope tying it to the
    seatpost) all the way into low gear but at least we got a lower gear.
    Thankfully the ride to Hai Phong was mostly flat. Highly coated in
    coal dust but _flat_.

    Here in Hai Phong I got it fixed. Payed around 300,000 dong or $21
    which is probably all wrong for the local economy but he fixed my bike.
    All I needed was a new bowden cable.

    The original bowden cable is bent. Seriously kinked. Almost but not
    quite crimped.

    But the bike was fine last night. At least it seemed fine. I'm fairly
    sure I remember shifting at least once in the ride to the hotel from
    where I got off the bus. So, how the hell did I do this?

    -M

    Report
  2. Tom Keats
    Archived post
    #2

    In article <[email hidden]>,

    Quoted post said:

    Happily, that was all it was.

    But I can't figure out how the heck I done it.

    By having integrated brakes/shifters :-) :-) :-) :-)
    (just kidding -- it could have happened with any
    shifting design.)

    Now that it's repaired, maybe you'll just have
    flat terrain to deal with, as per Murphy's Law.

    When things go right it's mere, random happenstance.
    But when they go wrong it's with split-second
    precision timing.

    cheers,
    Tom

    --
    -- Nothing is safe from me.
    Above address is just a spam midden.
    I'm really at: tkeats [curlicue] vcn [point] bc [point] ca

    Report
  3. Email address hidden
    Archived post
    #3
    Tom Keats said:

    In article <[email hidden]>,

    Quoted post said:

    Happily, that was all it was.

    But I can't figure out how the heck I done it.

    By having integrated brakes/shifters :-) :-) :-) :-)
    (just kidding -- it could have happened with any
    shifting design.)

    What makes it crimp up like that?

    Quoted message said:

    Now that it's repaired, maybe you'll just have
    flat terrain to deal with, as per Murphy's Law.

    Pretty much. And tomorrow is pretty much my last biking day, got two
    more weeks in Vietnam but they are with a non riding friend and the
    trip home will be by airplane.

    Quoted message said:

    When things go right it's mere, random happenstance.
    But when they go wrong it's with split-second
    precision timing.

    Yeah.

    -M

    Report
  4. mark
    Archived post
    #4

    <[email hidden]>

    Quoted message said:

    The original bowden cable is bent. Seriously kinked. Almost but not
    quite crimped.

    But the bike was fine last night. At least it seemed fine. I'm fairly
    sure I remember shifting at least once in the ride to the hotel from
    where I got off the bus. So, how the hell did I do this?

    -M

    I've seen this happen when bikes are stacked together with other bikes or
    other items, like for transport on a bus/plane/whatever, or storage in a
    hotel's baggage storage. The cable gets snagged on another bike, a piece of
    luggage or whatever, and someone who doesn't understand bikes just pulls
    really hard to retrieve the bike or move it out of the way.
    --
    mark

    Report

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