[oldacura]

A rookie question here. I'm replacing the cabling on the bike. I bought new cable housing. The bike shop sold me 5mm shifter housing. When I got home, I realized that I wasn't sure which housing was brake which was shifter.

Is the brake housing spiral wrap & shift housing longitudinal strands?

Also, I have a pair of housing cutters. It seems really difficult to cut the non-spiral housing (it just crushes - I have to chew through it). Is there a trick? Should I use a Dremel tool with a cutoff disk?

[The BikeForums Team]

This is an archived thread, you can find the full version of this thread, with images, links and more content here.

Ready to buy? Check out these two online bike stores:
- http://www.nashbar.com (you can find the latest bike nashbar coupons in this thread)
- http://www.performancebike.com (you can find the latest performance bike coupons in this thread)

Cya on the forums,
- The BikeForums Team
- http://www.bikeforums.net

[dfcas]

Brake is spiral and more flexible.if your cutters struggle with the derailleur housing,you can use a Dremel.

My basic Park cutters go right through either one,but the der is tougher.

dan

[TandemGeek]

As is often times the case, Sheldon provides a concise outline of some good techniques:
http://sheldonbrown.com/cables.html#cutting

I use bicycle cable cutters followed by a short 'kiss' against the bench grinder: it's rather fool proof. Second best would be cutters and a flat file. I've tried the Dremmel and just found the "snip" and "kiss" or a few pulls of the file to be more efficient.

[oldacura]

Thanks for the tips!

My cable cutters were old & dull. I bought some new Pedro's cutters & they work much better. I don't have a bench grinder so I used a flat file to remove the section of spiral housing crushed by the cutter.