With all the nice bikes coming out with fully internal cable / hose routing through the headset, it’s got me wondering how crazy it would be to drill one’s own holes in the down tube to create a DIY sem-internal routing.
This would presumably mean they couldn’t have guided tubes inside the fram but none of my existing bikes have that anyway. Fully guided hoses is one of the “must haves” on my new bike shopping list, but I’d rather have unguided hoses than hoses through my headset.
It always sounds crazy when I think about it but I wonder how fatal a hose size hole would be in the down tube? Surely it could be reinforced…
I was hoping to tag Raoul Luescher but he doesn’t seem to be here, so I’ll probably have to copy this to Discord…
Maybe there’s some other carbon repair experts here?.
Hose and cable holes in frames are reinforced. There’s an old saying ‘holes are heavy’, because you have to add much more material to maintain strength of the surrounding material than you loose from making the hole.
Even if you could theoretically do it, is it really worth the effort? You’d have to drill the hole, add reinforcement (you’d need it on the inside too), and then presumable repaint. Headset routing is a massive PITA, but surely not that much. You’d be better off putting your money towards a wireless groupset so you at least only then need to worry about the brake hoses going through the headset.
Definitely not a carbon expert, but know that it’s generally not advised to drill any holes in carbon fiber that aren’t already there from the factory. I’ve only done it once and it was the underside of a handlebar to get a Di2 wire from the shifter to the bar end junction.
So would this guy I know be an idiot for considering drilling out the cable stop on a chainstay in an effort to internally run a Di2 wire on an externally routed frame? Asking for a friend, of course.
Fair enough, to be clear this was only a mind game. I guess it was triggered by someone else suggesting they could do the opposite on their old Aethos.
I’m far more likely to just keep my existing bikes or choose new ones that don’t need any hoses to pass through the headset.
I did this mod on my P2: (not my website I just did the same thing)
but caveat empotato.
There ya go - I’m not the only loony out there!
