bigbenaugust 

I have a bike with a bar-end shifter (on a road bar) and it is in dire need of a re-wrap... let's just say my first wrap job ever should have been thrown to the dogs like the first pancake off of the stove. It's a miracle that it's lasted this long.

When I did the first wrap, I stuffed some excess up in behind the bar end shifter. According to this thread, maybe that wasn't the best idea.

So in order to remove the bar wrap, I will have to pull out the bar end shifter. Is there a way I can do this without having to recable the rear derailleur? I am not sure there's enough excess to unscrew the cable at the derailleur and use that to pull the bar-end out.

Any tips here? Thanks!

Jeff Wills

I've been playing with my bar-ends, trying out different handlebar configurations. (It's a weird project.) Do it like this:

Put the bike in high gear (small cog) so it's easy to get some slack in the cable.
Remove the pivot screw, pivot bushing, and shifter disk from the shifter. Push the shift lever to the side. It's a good idea to reassemble the parts on the loose shifter so nothing gets lost.
You should be able to get to the wedge bolt in the shifter pod with a long 6mm hex (Allen) wrench. Loosen clockwise and extract the pod.
Reassembly is the opposite. The only tricky part is getting the shifter disk in the correct orientation. It'll go on 4 ways, but only one is correct- but since you started out with the shifter in the "slack" position, the right way should be obvious.

FBinNY 

Unless you have an older over the BB cable guide where you can pop out the wire there's nom easy way to get some slack.

You have two choices, either loosen the pinch bolt and see if you can buy yourself about 1" of slack so you can remove the shifter, or trim old tape carefully at the gap between the plug and bar, and simply leave the tucked end where it is for now.

Next time, assemble the cables and tighten the bar end before taping. It also helps to use electrical tape in 3 or four places to stabilize the housing on the bar so taping is easier.

bradtx

Ben, If you don't want to release the cable anchor screws at the derailleurs FB's second paragraph is the way to go. Just trim with a razor blade the junction of the handle bar and the bar end.

There are three different styles used to dress the shifter cable from the shifters... classic (under wrap to first bend, see pic), bare (no cable housing under the wrap) and with the cable housing wrapped to near the stem (like an Ergo shifter).



Brad

Bob Pringle

Another way to gain some slack in the derailler cable is to put the chain on the largest cog and then, without allowing the rear wheel to turn, push the bar-end lever down, as though to shift the chain to the smallest cog. The chain will prevent the derailler from moving so the cable will be slack. This allows the shifter to be disassembled and pushed aside so that the mounting pod can be removed.

Regards,
Bob P.

bigbenaugust 

All great ideas, thanks! Unfortunately, I can't seem to find my bar tape in the shed, so this will have to wait until I find it.

Retro Grouch 

Why don't you just take a knife and cut the bar wrap where it tucks under the bar end?

When you re-wrap, start at the bottom. That way your hands won't catch on the overlaps and eventually loosen them up.

gyozadude

I got lucky in that my braze-on cable guides are slotted, so with just shifting to smallest chain ring and biggest rear cog, I can manually pivot the FD out and shorten the cable (or reverse if you have a top pull FD) and on the rear, just don't pedal and shift to smallest cog. Then I can ease the housing out of the slots and gain a lot of slack. Now I can loosen the bar con shifters and re-do the wraps.

However, there is another challenge with bar con shifters and handle bar tape, and that of course, is the shifter cable run that makes two loops projecting from the inside of each lower drop on the handle bars. With STI/brifters, it's possible to just wrap the tape from bottom to top without too much interruption. But to provide an out of the cable loops, (see Brad's pic above) we require the tape be wrapped from top down to the bar end.

But RetroGrouch hints above that if the wrap is from top down, your hands, when on the tops of the drops or corners or brake hoods, will catch the edges of the next wrap and over time push them down. It's preferrable to wrap from bottoms-up for the top section of the drops. This is where brake hoods are now our friends (or enemy). If the brake hood is stretchy enough, it's possible to do the wrap in two sections and mask the discontinuity under the brake hoods and it'll still look and feel okay.

To prevent loosening, I get two-sided carpet tape and flip the brake hood up (hopefully it won't tear - but I stock extras - always) and apply some to allow the tape to stick to the lever body. The wrap will keep that stuck, but the adhesive helps prevent sliding. I also take some of the two-sided tape and tape over the bar con shifter cable housing and handle bar end. This helps keep the cable from squirming and temporarily keeps it in place. Then starting at the brake lever body, I start high and inside along the brake lever body with the tape and wrap down until I get close to the shifter, then I cut with less than 1 inch excess, stuff, push the bar con shifter into the plug, and tighten. prefer counter-clockwise for left hand, and clockwise on the right side (so the overlap seams are lined up sort of with my thumbs). (really should post some video).

For the tops, I also tape down the brake cable runs along the tops of the handlebar, then do a sort of criss-cross/over-under wrap around the tag end of the previous wrap around the brake lever body so it hides the brake lever clamp completely in the back. This provides a good anchor to then wrap from the lever up to the top. Note that there is some trial-error experience here where you should ideally spiral up the handlebar with a spiral that is "outside" leading. That means starting from the criss-cross at the brake lever body, you should exit that on the outside of the body and advance up the handlebar and wrap around the curvature relatively in a counter-clock-left, or clock-wise-right FROM the perspective of you being inside the handlebar center moving up the tubing toward the stem. What this does is slant the wrap more optimally so riding the tops and curves of the bar will increase tension on the tape making it tigher on the bars and harder to shear the adhesive and nudge the tape, as opposed to the other way which allows hand pressure to push and reduce tape tension putting all the load on the adhesive backing.

Typically, most folks use black electrical tape to secure the ends at the top. It comes in various colours too. If you're REALLY into detail, I know some folks who go all out and get heat shrink tubing, slide this onto the handlebars prior to all the wrapping, and make sure the brake cables are routed through the heat shrink, and then after the electrical tape goes on, they take a ligher and shrink down the tubing around the electrical tape to make sure it doesn't unravel. I don't go that far on my own bikes, but yes, I stock a bunch of coloured heat shrink tubing in 1 - 2 inch ID for buddies who insist. Go figure!