Hello, this is my first post, and I come in desperation.

Apologies if this has already been covered - first let me give a little background. I have a 2004 Fuji Professional with DA7800. I love the bike, and have had many happy miles, but recently decided to upgrade the frame.

Well, one thing led to another, and I made a few impromptu decisions using the credit card. Now I have a new frame, wheels and DA9000 groupset. Ah well, you only live once.

The frame and groupset arrived a few days ago, and I can already see where I'm going to have some challenges during the build. The frame, a fondriest TF3 1.2 has internal cabling, and the manufacturer has thoughtfully inserted cable sheaths to help with the routing. I've attached a picture for reference.

The manual that came with the frame is roughly worded, to say the least. If I understand correctly, I need to take the bare cables and route them through these sheaths in order to attach the cables to the derailleurs. My question is, do I leave the internal sheaths on the cables, or do I remove them after I've routed the cables (in other words, should the cables be uncovered internally, or should they be covered by the sheaths)?

Any help/advice would be very much appreciated.

Thanks!

i don't have any experience with that frame, but if you remove them, i would think it would be difficult in the event that you had to replace a cable. seeing as how, as you put it, "the manufacturer has thoughtfully inserted cable sheaths to help with the routing."

Thanks, huey, but I'm still puzzled. Seems that if I ever needed to replace cables, I could reverse the process (slip on sheaths, remove old cables, route new cables, remove sheaths). My question is, after installation, do i remove the sheaths, or simply keep them in place? It seems that it would be easiest just to leave them there, but then other concerns arise; namely, how do I cut the sheaths so that 1) the sheath butts up against the exterior cable housing at the point of entry, and 2) how do i avoid cutting the sheaths so short that they fall into the frame?

If I ever buy another frame, it's going to have external cables. Period

I don't want to tell you to remove them, but I can't think of a frame that you keep the sheaths in there. There are frames where you run full length cabling, there are frames that have cables stops and tubes to guide the inner, and there are ones that run naked inners through the tubes and routed on guides. I don't recall any with removable sheaths that are meant to stay there. I have heard of second hand frames with cables removed that were nearly impossible to feed new cables in. I have no experience with Fondriest though.

I'm also reluctant to tell you to just cut the sheaths because what you described is standard practice for many bikes.

Thanks, Crescent, that helps. I think I see the way forward - I'm going to remove the sheaths after I route the cables; if there's a problem (cable rattle, binding, etc..), I can use my own logic and re-install the sheaths

I'll let you know how it goes.

Thanks again.

OP, is that mechanical internal cable routing or electronic?

Um, perhaps you could contact the manufacturer with your questions. They might be able to provide you with answers instead of (more- or less-) educated guesses.

What ever you do don't remove both the cable and housing together or rerouting them will be a nightmare. Is what you call the "sheath" real full length cable housing or just short pieces of tubing at the ends?

Fine minds think alike! I sent them an email a few days ago, but no response. Will continue to pester them, but I'm anticipating radio silence.

Good question, and maybe you're on to something - evidently the frame is set up to run mechanical and electronic (I'm running mechanical). Perhaps the sheaths are to be left in place for the electronic set up?

Yeah, that's a mistake I definitely don't want to make. I never imagined internal routing to be such a pain in the ass. The 'sheath' is very similar in thickness to a drinking straw (thin plastic), and it runs the full length from the cable input on the downtube, to below the bottom bracket. There's a second sheath for the RD that continues through the chain stay and comes out near the drop out.

The sheaths aren't attached to anything internally, and they just sort of rattle around. I just can't think of any reason that they would need to stay on the cables once they're routed, other than maybe to prevent internal rattling? The more I think this through, the more I've convinced myself that removing them is the way to go, but just want to make sure I'm not missing something obvious.

Thanks again for all of the responses.