I feel like a bit of a dummy, but here goes.

I bought the Nashbar black ATB frame, and both shifters plus the rear brake are top routed cable stops. That's not my problem. My problem is the fact that the channel for the rear brake appears to be just that; a channel, with no "stop" to it. The cable housing simply runs through, with nothing to seat it against.

I've attached an image. You can see the three stops there on the top tube...the one on the upper left is the "unstopped" one for the brake cable housing.

Either this part is way defective (I hope not, I already put the bottom bracket on, and BOTH "stops" are like this) or I'm missing a part, or I need a specialized cable housing of some sort.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

There is a housing cap made for just such situations-your lbs should have some.

Thanks frankenmike. I've done a fair amount of re-cable-ing on other bikes we own, but the guides all had stops as part of the design. I was at a bit of a loss here.

Since you use so much more cable tension on brakes it's common to run brake cable housing continuously from the brake lever all of the way to the caliper.

Or would it simply be a channel made to use full-length cable housing?

You said it's an ATB frame so I assume it has posts for cantilever or V-brakes. For cantlevers you will need a housing stop above the straddle wire, probably as part of the seat post clamp and you run the housing in one piece all the way to this stop. For V-brakes, you run the housing continuously all the way to the noodle.

I think that cable stop block is a dud.


edit 5/7/07: it was not a dud.

Yeah...Nashbar wrote back and said that the stop is meant to also accept hydraulic brake lines, so I'll have to run continuous housing all the way back to the noodle.

I'm still going to check if there is a housing cap or ferrule that will enable me to run the brake cable without continous housing. That, and I'll need a way to get the housing to stay in there as well.

Stupid hydraulic cable stops...

Not stupid. Just "universal". Go to www.bikeparts.com and search under "brake accessories". You'll find little adjuster barrels that fit into cable stops to provide break adjustment on systems (like running road brake levers) that have no way of trimming the brakes. You can slide it into the cable guide-- should work okay. Problem Solvers (brand name) makes lots of gizmos to solve such problems.

You'll find something.