Originally Posted by
juntjoo
I'm poor. and I seem to fray cables somehow and I like figuring things out even if there's nothing to figure out. I'm curious
I completely understand this. For most of my life, I didn't have much in the way of "excess cash", and even now that the inflow (
for the moment) exceeds outlay, my penurious habits die hard. And bicycles are in general are a great way to save money on transportation - used bikes are currently plentiful and inexpensive, many parts are interchangeable, and you don't need an OBD-2 reader to ask your vehicle what's going on. For over 40 years, I've been a proponent of a "use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without" mindset, especially with bikes - hey, most of my bikes have been in my possession for nearly 30 years, and I have a Strategic Stockpile of parts for fixes and builds.
But there's "thrifty", and there's "cutting it too close". Like the time in high school when I took the one fork I had, put it in the one frame I had, and rode it - until the steerer tube snapped (due to the wrong/clunky fit) and almost put me through the plate glass window at the Circle K.
Another example: someone provided a helpful link to my friend Mr. Allen's page of "get you home" fixes. Some of them, like knotting a cable, I would trust for 30-50 miles, but not for much longer. Plus there's a difference in the safety-criticality of cables. If you snap or strip a shifter cable, it's an annoyance. If you strip or snap a brake cable, it can be life-threatening, especially as the failure may occur at the worst time (emergency braking).
If you want to experiment with saving money by splicing shifter cables, it probably won't be a disaster, and a long-term report on your experiences (months or years of in-use time) could be quite useful. But I'd caution against doing it on brake cables, or on other items such as mismatching forks, incorrect brake reach or adjustment, poor bottom bracket fit, questionable chain splices, axles that don't quite match the hub, big differences in wheel overlock, and so on. And set-screw electrical connectors may be stronger than crimp-type, but they are designed to hold under thermal shifts and vibration, not serious tension such as a cable.
In short, experimenting is fun, but not if it hurts, maims, or kills you or someone else on the bike.
(stop snickering, crazy C&Vers...)
Have fun, don't let how people respond to you affect how you look at others, and enjoy the ride.