Joined: Apr 2010
Posts: 13,497
Likes: 949
From: Boston-ish, MA
Bikes: 72 Peugeot UO-8, 82 Peugeot TH8, 87 Bianchi Brava, 76? Masi Grand Criterium, 74 Motobecane Champion Team, 86 & 77 Gazelle champion mondial, 81? Grandis, 82? Tommasini, 83 Peugeot PF10
There is no fixed rule for housing length. That pic looks good as a model. The thing about bar height is unless you are using a really long stem the difference between stem up or down isn't so great as to make the housing look odd. Just get the bar dialed in roughly where you'll ride it then install the brakes to look like that pic. The only real error could be that you make it too short so that raising the bar (literally) pulls the housing tight. If you make it long you can always cut it later if you need to.
[MENTION=455882]Bianchi84[/MENTION] makes a good point about turning. That pulls the cables tighter than raising the bar generally would.
In that pic the cables appear to run in front of the bar. Some of us, perhaps almost all, would say they should run behind the bar. It's a tossup about whether the rear should run to the left of the right of the stem.
"I've cut this cable three times and it's still too short."
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