I do have a marketing degree and have been flipping bikes on craigslist for several years. It must just come out without me trying to make it sound like an ad.

To be fair, I had the same problem with the rear brakes on my old Jamis Aurora which has very narrow seat stays. I saw this issue on quite a few bikes when I wrenched in a bike shop back in college. This does remind me of a funny story about REI which happened when I was buying the Buzz. The shop tech had to check my bike out before it could go out the door and there was another customer there buying a Marin Muirwoods 29 which also had to be checked out. Some lady was helping out with showing the guy his new bike and you could tell she didn't know much about bikes. She didn't even know what bolt-on wheel skewers were (these come as an extra in addition to the standard QR skewers). She showed him how to remove the front wheel and reinstall. I cringed when she was showing him how to tighten the QR. At first, she had the lever pointing straight forward and I could tell she didn't have it tight enough. I tried to interject and explain that the lever wasn't tight enough, particularly since a handful of front disc brake can easily pull the disc rotor side of the hub down towards the bottom of the drop out. So, she moves the lever so that it bottoms out on the side of the fork leg which doesn't even let the QR cam bottom out. I cringed again, but didn't want to jump into the middle of things. That is when I noticed my bike was just about ready to go too and knew I'd be walking out right behind the guy who bought the Marin. I went over to him while he was starting to load it in his van. I advised him that I didn't think they had properly tightened his QR and checked it for him. It was way too lose and I showed him how to properly tighten his skewer. I might have saved REI from an eventual law suit or at least an unhappy customer.

Yeah, I was thinking I needed to trim the housing, but it was pushing midnight when I was installing my new brake pads which would have been the ideal time to do it. It is easier for me to do this myself than take it back to REI and you can read my story above. I worked in a shop, so I generally do my own repairs and maintenance. I went ahead and trimmed the rear cable housing because I was able to take about an inch out of the small piece that goes from the frame to the rear brake noodle and then about 4 inches from the larger section. That allowed me to cut the cable off nice and clean without have the funky smashed section from where it was clamped in the brake arm. The front cable isn't as ridiculously long, so I left it along for now (re-routed it inside of the arc of the rear cable housing). I couldn't trim as much off it to be able to cut the cable off nice and clean like the rear cable, so I decided to leave it along until I can grab a fresh cable at a shop. It doesn't look so bad, though:



If I had to guess the weight, 25 lbs.

Edit: and I forgot, one more picture after trimming the cable housing, new grips, and adding a second white bottle cage: