The Golden Boy 

I have a bike that has Barcons and a Vetta front rack, I have an Acorn frontbag and it's a wonderful setup.

HOWEVER, the sweep of the cables always work in front of the bag, pushing it backwards, sometimes causing the velcro straps holding it to the rack to become undone.

I was thinking of rerouting the shifter cables UNDER a portion of the rack, perhaps crossing to the opposite side and then crossing under the downtube.

Has anyone done anything similar?

MetinUz

I have the same bag but a different front rack, and don't have any problem with cable routing. I route the cable under the rack, inside the bag loop in the front, under the loops in the back. My bars are not angled as much as yours, so the shift cable does not have the same upward sweep.

I would suggest using longer cable housing and attaching it to the rack with a pair of loose zip ties on each side. This will allow the cable to slide through when you turn, without putting a strain on the bag straps.

I don't have a good picture, but here is my setup:

nesteel 

Am I weird for routing my bar end cables along the handle bars, and out the sides along with the brake cable/housing?

Grand Bois

Not at all.

MetinUz

That results in a longer run with more twists, and still interferes with the front pockets of the bag.

The Golden Boy 

That's a lot of what I was thinking about!

I was wondering about the housing angle from the rack to the cable stop on the downtube.

The Golden Boy 

So I spent a bit of time with this.

I tried running the cables under the rack in a bunch of different ways- in front of the struts, behind the struts, over the brake cable, under the cable, criss crossing the cables under the rack...

What I settled on was just doing a "normal" double cable criss cross. Cross the cables in front of the head tube and cross the cables under the downtube. The reason for it is that it puts the cable in a position that the velcro under the bag can sort of secure the cable AND it makes less contact with the headtube. I know some people don't like the double criss cross as the cables rub against each other under the downtube, but that is so minor; minor enough to be not really worth mentioning.







This is what the underside of the downtube looks like:




The bag seems to sit in a good location:

The Golden Boy 

Although I did come to a "as close as I'm going to get" situation with the cables- it still wasn't right- the shift cables would work in front of the bag, shove the bag back and it would be less than perfect.

This past week I did some switching of equipment- I swapped out the Vetta rack for the "jim blackburn" that had been on my Voyageur SP. Because the "tombstone" is wider (the whole width of the rack), the cables kind of stuck up in the air- and there was no way the bag was going to fit on there without moving the cables:





I was thinking about routing the cables through the "tombsone," but that would mean undoing the cables again- so I opted to just run the cables under the rack- I think it's looking better than it was with the other rack. The cables don't seem to interfere with the bag or the straps at all.

TimmyT 

Well, that seems annoying. FWIW, I would have tried to keep the cables from crossing twice (once above, once under), by using zip-ties to make loops around the rack. This would keep the cables tidy while not allowing them on top of the rack.

That's my armchair solution, but I've done a fair bit of routing wires using loose zip ties for dynamos and it seems to work.

crank_addict

Dave, I know you're familiar with this build but without doubt, I would fully route the shift cables and wrap (pic below, prior to a top wrap of Newbaums).

When I get a chance, will have pics of the handlebar bag and mount. The entire assembly is installed or removed in seconds. Perfect no interference including with winter weight gloves. Awaiting for an early style front pannier rack.