At work now, just made the blunder of trying to change the cable config on my commuter. The bar end shifters did not follow the line of the bars, instead just coming out of the bar ends and into the barrel adjusters. I have some sweet new Jagwire grey housing I brought with me to get the job done at lunch.



After unwrapping the bars (I always double wrap) and cutting the crimp off the end, then taping the new housing along the intended route, realized my mistake of now having a cable about two feet too short Instead of re-wrapping the old way, going to ride home in the tall gear and attend to this matter upon arrival with the new cable I forgot to pack on the trip to work

I did my first-ever bar wrap earlier this week. After wrapping the bars, I went for my first ride and realized that I had neglected to wrap the brake cables under the bar tape. Oops!

This blunder can easily be avoided by using the old housings as a guide to cut the new housings to length, assuming of course that the old housings were of the proper length.

Well, what I did not take into consideration is that the old housing was this much shorter because it was not wrapped beneath the tape. Changing the route of the shifter -> derailleur changed the length of the cable, and not in a way that helped me

How much can you turn your bars with that setup?

As it is right now, I have full motion. It seems to be the way it was intended. The bar end shifters come with about a 6" guide, at which point I assume the housing is intended to emerge from the tape. I've done some reading, and as long as quality housing/cable are used, [friction] shouldn't be an issue when routing all the way through the bars.

I routed my cables this way -

^^^That's my goal right there.

EDIT: Nice wrap job, and handsome bike!

I was just curious, haven't used bar end shifters. I like clean cable routing....it just looked weird coming from the end of the bars to the down tube like that (and it looked like my knees could take it out given the right circumstances). I like Vettefrc's shifter routing but I'd go with aero levers.

i routed mine under the tape like yours, but brought the right housing to the left cable stop,
and the left housing to the right cable stop. this produces a gentle curve that doesn't rub
on the sides of the head tube. then you cross the cables under the down tube to get them
to the proper groove under the bottom bracket. if your cables are routed over the bottom
bracket, this won't work.

Under the tape works fine for friction but may cause issues with indexed systems... servicing the shifters and cables is easier when you run the cable housings outside or part way out and results in a shorter shift cable. This is important to know as not all shifter cables are long enough to be wrapped under the bars on some bikes.

I can see the servicing issues, but can you please explain how longer cables affect indexing?

I had considered this, but doesn't the cross in the cables cause excessive rub?

Excellent point! I have also ran cables coming out just below the levers

vette - You have some truly beautiful bikes...

It is the extra bends you get when you wrap under the bars that can affect indexing... not the length of the cable.

Thank you!

i think any rub is not desireable, but i also think the two cables would take a very long time to do any serious damage to each other.
very little friction involved.

The friction is practically non-existent. The tensile load is small enough that there is barely any force pressing the two cables against each other. This routing is not possible if you want to use a third bottle cage under the down tube though (assuming your frame has those mounts). The cage will interfere with the crossing of the cables.

Whelp, after getting home and evaluating the work involved, I looked at the undisturbed rear derailleur cable/housing and decided it really looks good the way it is. The servicing issue exists no matter how you route the cables as the bars must be unwrapped all the way to the shifter to change housing or cable anyway.

You can change cables without unwrapping the bars but have to be sure you have some clean cable ends... it is sometimes easier if you remove the shifter pod when you are threading in the new cable.

I never wrapped any bars with cables underneath until last year (owning mostly older bikes and MTB's). I don't think my first effort came out too bad:

This is why I read this forum. Thanks for the tip.

Just remember to thread the cable through the pod before you run it through the housing...