JOHN J

Good morning everyone,

I hope all is well!

Im needing to raise the bars a bit plus add a stem (handlebar bag mount) On my surly cross Check.

unfortunatly I did not leave enough cable housing so I have to re -do the cables to make it work.

with re-doing the cables Im wondering if I should go through all the trouble of wrapping the BARCON cables along the handle bars and tape over them or go back to the common practice of just looping them under the drops?? I like the clean look of all the way under the bars but it is a pain to do and seems like no overwhelming advantage to the traditional method, do they get in the way of anything if done the old way??

Your thoughts please?

"John"

same time

I wrap them the "traditional" way - under the tape for the bottoms of the drops, then the cables come out and loop around to the downtube. I even use those plastic v-shaped things under the tape.

It does get in the way if you don't play with it a bit and figure out where you normally like to put your hands on the bar. I tape it up with electrical tape first, then ride around the block to try it out. In the winter, I wear thick gloves, and the cable can get in the way of that.

I never thought of taping the cable all the way up to the stem - might try that next time.

Kabloink

I use the traditional method also. I used the original Suntour stainless steel housings which appeared too short to wrap.

aadhils

I use my barcons on aerobars, but I would do it the traditional way if I were'nt using the aerobars...

lxpatterson

i use barcons too with moustache bar. i run it under the tape campy ergopower style (habit from racing bike). It works great. However, the caveat is that I use a non-index 7. Using index might not work as well bc of the extra bends of the housing.

michaelnel

Traditional way here. Why? It's easy and works well.

GTcommuter

Up until last week, I had barcons on both bikes (one bike just went single speed). I had both styles, traditional on the road bike and under the tape on the cross bike. Functionally I never noticed a difference but I also like friction levers. Style wise I liked the way the cables looked on each type of bike.

roadfix

Ergo routing for me. Tandem length rear cable and extra length cable housings required.

Michel Gagnon

Rivendell shows a few with cables sticking out even lower (second photo), but I would find the cables objectionable when I ride with the hands deeper into the drops.

My Trek 520 had bar-end shifters with cables wired the "traditional" way. Basically as above, except the cables were exiting the bars near the brake hoods (which were and are horizontal). It worked fine and I didn't have any reason to change the setup except for aesthetics... and the fact one cable housing was kinked and needed to be changed anyway. I didn't have a handlebar bag at that time, but I don't think there would have been any conflict on my 64-cm frame with raised handlebars. Might be a tad different on a small frame.

I now have concealed shifter cables travelling all the way beside the brake cables. No loss of performance – maybe 0.01 s, but I'm not racing – and a much nicer look I think. The only drawback is that I need a 3-m-long tandem cable for the rear shifter and a regular rear cable for the front shifter.

P.S. Beware: many shops sell "tandem-length" cables that are 2.65 m long. It might work on mountain bikes with Rapidfire shifters, but on my 64-cm single with46-cm wide drop bars, I need a cable that's 2.7 m or 2.75 m long, and on the tandem, I need one that is 2.995 m long.

michaelnel

Whoa! I didn't realize it, but their gallery has pics of *my* Atlantis still. I picked up the frame from them on a Friday afternoon and the pics were taken early the next morning when I got the initial build done. It sure changed a lot after those pics before I sold it!

Michel Gagnon

May I add that one of the main reasons I route my cables along the handlebars (concealed, Ergo style) is that I find it odd to have aero cabling for brake levers on one hand, and ugly shifter cables that are travelling in loose air on the other hand.