Full Length Housing Performance?

[back40]

I'm looking into building a cross frame with internal housing guides (full length guide tubes). Does anyone have any experience with the shifting performance when housing is run from the shifters to the derailleurs, particularly the rear one?

Thanks for any input...

Glen

back40 bicycleworks

[johncaletti]

It seemed to me, working on bikes setup with full housing, that the shifting was a bit vague - feels like there is more drag in the system and more compression of all that housing. I imagine there are people who ride in such wet conditions that they have found full housing better due to standard setups getting too contaminated. Seems like a better option is a more regular cable/housing setup and then use a sealed system (Gore) with a full liner, but only segments of housing so you get the seal but without so much length of housing.

[steve garro]

Lots of my bikes have full length housing.
- Garro.

[fortyfour]

This is 29er content and not Cross content but thought it was still relevant.

Living in New England and riding year round my bikes tend to see a lot of weather (mud, rain, ice/snow...) and I've been running full length housing on all of my personal builds for quite some time now. That includes rear derailleur, and front and rear mech disc brakes. It is important to note that I've been running Shimano's SIS housing as the housing is very stiff and I do not see any performance drop due to compression. There is another school of thought with a lot of research behind it regarding down tube routed cables using sealed systems with a full liner as Caletti mentions where any contaminants that do infiltrate the cables will drain and the system relies on the sealing / full lining of the cables. I've run both and personally I found that if you don't allow any contaminants a way to get into the lines, you are pretty much problem free. This is one of the reasons why I choose to run full housing. I run the lines on the Top Tube where the opening is at the shifter or brake lever which is one of the furthest points away from mud/water. The two points for me that are closest to the contaminants are at the derailleur and the disc brake (which is a mechanical disc brake). So anything that does get back up the line is subject to gravity and runs out.

Close up coming off the bars:


New Setup by BLACK CAP Studio, on Flickr

If you squint, you can see the lines coming down the DT and splitting in front of the ST. I found running the cables for the rear brake and derailleur to the left of the head tube creates a smoother path for the cables. They are run asymmetrically down the top tube:


New Setup by BLACK CAP Studio, on Flickr

Different regions & conditions may dictate a different setup as I've tuned my personal builds specifically for New England singletrack. Hope that helps.

-Kris

[Bigfoot]

Lots of my bikes have full length housing.
- Garro.

What about your customers out in the desert and dry regions where you live? Are they requesting full housing? What would be the point if they aren't riding in the rain, and you take a performance hit in shifting.

[steve garro]

What about your customers out in the desert and dry regions where you live? Are they requesting full housing? What would be the point if they aren't riding in the rain, and you take a performance hit in shifting.

Moon dust! - Dust + lube = cutting fluid.
Full housing is a choice - it's a custom bike.
PS - you know I live at 7000ft in the 5th snowiest city in the entire USA, right? That 1/2 of AZ is high pine forest, and that only 1/4 of my bikes stay in the state?
- Garro.

[Amaro Bikes]

One of the problems with internal routing is how tight are the cable cornering, so I think is not so much about full length housing (wich is good stuff) but about how many corners and how "steep" are those corners. For example, the first Campagnolo Record/Super-record 11 speed had some problems with this question, causing quite a lot of headaches to many shop mechanics not being able to predict why sometimes the campy was so nicely gearing and why sometimes was not perfect. In the end, it was found out that some of the internal cable routed frames created the issue, not the campy 11 in itself, and making for example some changes with the BH G5 first generation frames, taking the internal route to "usual" external route, so to avoid this kind of issues. Also, campy took some measures to avoid the same problems and all together got it solved out.

Anyway, just as an example of how some extra tricky cable cornering can make the actual ultra tight gear systems suffering a bit.

About mud/water, I think even with full housing it can get rusted/dust, and sometimes is better to have periodical cable/housing changes to have it working smoothly rather than having a full housed bike with not frecuent cable/housing changes.

Of course, that's just my opinion, wich probably is not right ;)

Cheers

[Bigfoot]

Moon dust! - Dust + lube = cutting fluid.
Full housing is a choice - it's a custom bike.
PS - you know I live at 7000ft in the 5th snowiest city in the entire USA, right? That 1/2 of AZ is high pine forest, and that only 1/4 of my bikes stay in the state?
- Garro.

Oh! Haha! I knew you were in AZ, but I actually had no idea that it's snowy there. And 1/2 foresty too?! I thought it was all desert! Should've known that lots of people, Arizonans and others are into internal housing. It is cleaner looking aesthetically.

I don't see why people get all bent out of shape on some minor surface rust on their cable wires. Just replace them. And a rusty wire, should shift as well as a non-rusty wire. I mean, cable pull from the shifter to the derailleur is still going to be the same regardless of a little rust on an exposed wire.

[Boedie]

Glen, I feel like it is a wash between full housing and partial housing. Having worked on countless northwest commuters and free ride bikes, I would say that they both have their pros and cons and it's how they are executed that's key. For instance, Klein- very poor choices on how they ran their internal cables on most of their bikes. More housing equals more money, each time you go to replace it. Full housing can rattle in guide tubes=pretty annoying. I have seen smooth shifting from both partial and full housing. Most is riding on the quality of the cables/housing. If I was going internal, I would choose housing stops and guide tubes for the cable. There is a certain novelty and "customness" to full internal routing, however once the novelty wears off and its just a machine to ride and maintain, then maybe the full internal routing would not be your best choice. It all boils down to a decision and whatever you and the customer work out will be fine. Good luck!

[Bssc]

full housing works well if a few things are done;
get rid of any grease in the housing cut it off clean it out it adds a ton of drag to the system
on the cables use a dry lube on the cables such as soap stone or paraffin wax burnish it in to the cable well then wipe off excess
use the 5mm size housing
be careful when washing the bike not to introduce water at the shifters

[Nate Zukas]

Full length housing is great but adds a lot of weight. Try what I do with and make cable stops then run nokon liner. Lighter weight and the benefits of an internal system.





Clean crisp shifting all cross season long!
NATE

[back40]

Thanks for all the feedback. I'm building in carbon so I've picked up some 1/4" OD titanium thin walled tubing to run brake casing through the top tube as an experiment. I'll try running an older steel cross frame with external full housing to see how if the shifting degrades at all.

Glen
back40 bicycleworks

[progetto]

Glen,
You need to update that blog, we need to see whats going on with your carbon work.
Bill

[back40]

I have a new batch of tubes on the way from ENVE. I'll update the blog with the build of the next two frames once I have them in hand and start cutting and gluing. I have a few quick experiments to do that I'll document as well.

Glen
back40 bicycleworks