Hi, I recently got a new mountain bike and have questions about cable lengths..
not a great picture but this is the natural position of the bars, steered to the side, mostly by the rear brake cable I think. Pretty sure I should be able to make it straight ahead through correct cable lengths?
It’s not been an issue riding but in the garage or pushing along from the saddle it is quite annoying.
My plan is to shorten the rear hose until the steering sits naturally straight, with a check there is enough articulation both ways to the starter stop.
Any tips or rules to follow to choose the best length for the hose?
The front hose looks longer than it needs to be as well, although that isn’t affecting the steering angle. Same question there, any rules or tips for setting the length?
Thanks
Not at all unusual for hoses to be far too long, especially on smaller framed bikes. The hoses will come in a standard length and that will be used on all bikes in that range.
In terms of shortening, you just need to ensure you’ve enough hose/cable to allow for full rotation of the bars plus a little bit extra. Sometimes I’ll add a bit more especially if I know (I ask the customer) the bike will be going into a bike box for travel and the bars will be removed to fit the box.
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Might also be worth assessing your dropper cable - given that the brake hose runs to the non-drive side but the bars are still natuarally turning left leads me to believe that the force is coming from the drive side of the bike, which is where your dropper cable is going.
Maybe try pushing more of the dropper cable outer into the frame and see if that changes it at all (as a first port of call)? If it does, then you can either decide to leave it like that or actually go to the effort of removing the dropper cable and shortening the outer.
For that matter, you could try the same thing with the brake hose. Once any excess of either hose or cable is inside the frame it shouldn’t continue to impact the natural position of the steering at rest.
I have a similar issue on my XC FS as the Fox TwinStick dropper & lockout remote plus the way the cable routing of the frame is designed means that the dropper & rear shock lockout both go into the non-drive side of the frame. To enable this with a clean curve in those cables means the bars naturally point slightly to the right. Does my head in, but I’m not going to bother sorting it!
This is moto style with the front brake lever on the right, correct? Little hard to see everything in the picture. I don’t route anything this way for any of our customers but normally, we route these with the hose going to the opposite side of the frame. So that left brake lever hose appears to be going into the non-drive side port when it should be to the opposite side. I can’t tell exactly what model this is but i‘m guessing an Epic…
The hoses are definitely too long and that would never leave our shop like that. As far as guidance for lengths, it’s a bit of an art more than a science. You want a natural sweep, with enough length to not pull when the bars are turned in a crash but you don’t want too much excess. I suggest looking at pictures of bikes on the specialized website for reference. They usually show good cockpit routing.
Mtnphotog, thanks for your comments, quite right that’s it’s an Epic and it the rear brake on the left, I’m in the UK and can’t cope with it the other way around!
The internal routing for this bike specifically puts the rear brake hose in the port on the left side, making a tight bend for the hose. I did think about seeing if the rear hose would go down the dropper cable port (and dropper in the rear brake hose port) but they exit differently in the frame so that’s a last resort if I can’t make it work with adjustments up front.
thanks.
Have you tried doing anything to your dropper or lockout cable yet? As I said before, if it’s something pushing the bars to the left then the force is likely coming from the right side - your brake hose would only pull the bars to the left if it were too short and struggling to reach between the frame and bar.
RichG, great advice to pull the cables through to test what would work, saved me a lot of trial and error!
You were right about the dropper and rear shock cables, shortening those made the natural steering position much closer to straight.
In the end I took 8-10cm off the front brake, shock and dropper cables, a much more tidy front end now.
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