wild animals

I have a Bianchi Milano w/Shimano Nexus 8 hub, and a week or so ago I put on new North Road bars, which are taller than my old bars. I can't raise the bars up without pulling the cables taut, so I have them too low until I can fix it.

I read the service guides on Shimano's site, and they give a vague idea of which cables to use for the brakes and shifters; I've figured out that I need indexed-shifting cables with 4mm housing and one cylindrical stop on one end, and M System cables/housing for the brakes. (Right?)

I can't find what I'm looking for! All of the SIS cable packages I've found w/google come with housing in lengths of 600mm or so, and that isn't long enough. (Oh and there are 10m reels of it, but I'm not buying no 10m reel.) The bike shops I know and trust are far away and I don't want to drive there unless I have to. To get housing that long, do I have to drive out to one of the shops and have them cut off a piece from a reel or something?

Is there any kind of a cheat (other than too-low bars) i can use to avoid replacing the cables? Do you have any tips for a first-timer? I really don't want to mess it up, obviously. Once I have the cables and housing I'll be most concerned about cutting stuff to the wrong length. Any advice?

Thanks a bunch for any help. I have no one to guide me!

oilfreeandhappy

I changed a cable recently, and I bought a Aztec Teflon Cable System kit at Performance. The cables are extra long, and could be sized to fit any brakes or gears. Worked out well...

here and there

Check out Jensonusa.com. They have brake cable and derailleur cable sets fairly cheap. alfred e. bike would be another place to check, and finally biketoolsetc.com.

Bike shops usually sell housing by the foot. To give you an idea of the prices, my LBS charges $2.99 a foot and they throw in a bunch of cable ends and ferrules. When I went to the LBS for housing I wasn't sure how much I needed so they measured off a bike and it came out to 6 feet of housing on the brakes so I ordered 8 feet for both the brakes and derailleurs. I left the cables/housing longer than I needed to give myself plenty of room to move the handlebars around and weeks later when I was happy with what I had I trimmed everything down.

genericbikedude

If you're going to do this yourself you need a dremel tool and/or good cable cutters. If you want to build the capacity to do this in the future, get the tools, and buy a roll of housing from any shop that can do online QBP orders (i.e. harris). It'll be more than you need, but the markup on cables and housing atg LBS's is like 400%+, because the items are so small.

wild animals

thanks guys!

i called two shops and one shop is charging twice as much as the other. if the cheaper housing/cables are generic am i going to have problems? or does it not matter that much?

GreenBear

Hi Wild Animals,

How did this project turn out?

Did you get the cables lengthened so you could raise up your North Road handlebars?

I'm planning to upgrade my own Bianchi Milano with North Road style Handlebars sometime this winter.

Best Wishes
Green Bear

GreenBear

Also
Which make/brand/size of North Road Style Handlebars did you go with? And where did you obtain them?

I am still hoping to find them in black, to go with the rest of the hardware on the Milano, but based on BF and Google searches so far that seems unlikely. They seem to only come in Chrome or plain aluminum.

At the moment, top non-black candidate in my sights are the North Roads sold by Harris cyclery. It seems they would be most comfy to use. But I haven't clarified yet whether they are appropriately sized for mounting shifters etc on the Milano..

Best Wishes
Green Bear

wild animals

hi greenbear,
i scrapped the whole thing because i wasn't willing to put more money into the bike since it appears not to fit and is a major culprit in a debilitating RSI injury.

one happy occurrence was that the tapfire shifter came with a new cable attached, and it was longer than the one on my bike!(!) so i didn't need to lengthen that cable. i lowered the handlebars a bit to keep the brake cables loose, but i think i'd already damaged the connection, having the bars too high, so i need new cables anyway.

at any rate! i got my north road bars at amazon.com through bikepartsusa. (link.) they're wald #8095 "touring" handlebars, and they cost me about US$16, inc shipping. i got steel bars because they're supposed to dampen more road noise than alu bars do. they fit all the measurements for the milano so they were easy to install, except for the too-short cables issue (which isn't a problem if you like your bars lower). if you pay attention to it, the silver looks kind of goofy, unfortunately. but i don't see why you couldn't spraypaint the bars before you install them, if you really want to. anyone know a reason why you shouldn't? the weight of the wald bars is probably the only major difference between these bars and $50+ bars. that and they may not take bar-end shifters, but nexus8 bikes shouldn't be used w/bar-ends as i understand it, so that's not a huge deal unless you plan to use the bars for a different bike later.

here's what the amazon page says:
"Wald Touring #8095 Width 23" Hieght 3" Stem Diameter 1" Chrome Steel Handlebar"

one thing that was an ordeal (especially with a wrist injury that reduced my grip strength to almost nothing) was getting the stupid grips off! my sister had to do it for me while i held the bike, because i couldn't twist the grips to get them off. it was really hard and it took two people a long, long time. i "treated" them with oil on the inside so i could take them off easier next time. it was really lame, i'm telling you. i wanted to cut them off but she wouldn't let me

good luck! let me know if you have any other questions about the bars or installation or whatever. i'll be happy to oblige!