Front brake obstructs frame-mounted gear adjusters

[Watchman]

Is there a solution to this?

I take in a few bikes each month from friends, colleagues and family when they need a quick service or repair. The latest is for poor indexing gears (I think only one gear combination was possible - probably due to mechanically inept interference). Anyway, the problem can be best described by the pic below:



It's clear the frame design doesn't account for that sort of brake. Although I've gently radiused the right hand gear selector cable, the left hand gear selector cable will prevent the rider from steering any further to the left. Forcing it will result in the aluminium adjuster breaking (it's really soft), so I'm wondering if there is a type of brake that would work in this instance?

Edited by Watchman on Saturday 21st February 15:25

[Herman Toothrot]

Shouldn't the cable just be the other side of the brake???

[jamiebae]

I bet that bike was assembled wrong - bought from Wiggle, delivered with bars detached and when the buyer built it up the bars rotated or twisted to mess up the cable routing. Take the bars and stem off, see if any manipulation or twisting helps take the cable clear of the brake.

Maybe that makes sense, maybe not!

[jamiebae]

Looking at the pic again, I think you need to take the bars off and standing in front of the bike spin them 360 degrees anticlockwise and that'll fix it.

[Watchman]

I took the cables off entirely, and refitted them with the least interference possible. There's no possible way you can avoid the right hand cable from coming into contact with the brake adjuster screw - even in a straight-ahead position.

And then, as soon as you turn either way, the brake adjuster screw sweeps in front of the gear selector cable on the right hand side. Gently bending it, as I have, at least permits steering entirely to the right and to ~45 degrees to the left but absolutely no further.

Frame is labelled up as MEKK. Never heard of it before but it's light-ish and despite having a low-spec (but perfectly functional) gearset, it all seems to work nicely - apart from this interference.

[Watchman]

When the steering was more or less straight ahead:

[bugeyewrx]

Any help, looks like the gear cable should run the other side of the brake cable?

[Matt_N]

Mekk is a well known UK based brand set up by two chaps.

Also that cable routing is a mess, you should redo it and get it right this time, it's perfeftly doable.

The problem with front brake routing is that they are made to be set up euro style so that the LH lever operates the front brake, that way you then get a nice radius from the exit of the cable at the LH tape to the cable stop on the brake.

[gazza285]

It's just a crap design, one of my bikes was the same, I cured it by putting on a Tektro 725 caliper on.

[Watchman]

Matt_N said:

Also that cable routing is a mess, you should redo it and get it right this time, it's perfeftly doable.

Whoa - check your attitude, dude.

The brake cable you can see routing to the top tube isn't causing any issues. It looks a mess in the pic I posted above but moves out of the way when you steer.

Unlike the pic posted above, the gear selector cable adjuster frame mounting is actually lower than the front brake adjuster, so there appears to be no alternative with the type of brake as supplied.

As assembled from new, the brake adjuster broke the left hand gear selector cable adjustment screw and bent the right hand one, causing the gear cable to be pinched and the subsequent friction preventing gear changes. At least now the right hand adjuster is free but there is still no way to turn left more than 45 degrees (which might be enough - I don't ride a dropped handlebar bike).

[Watchman]

gazza285 said:

It's just a crap design, one of my bikes was the same, I cured it by putting on a Tektro 725 caliper on.

Brilliant. Thanks for that. That's just the information I needed. I'll talk to the bike's owner.

[Matt_N]

Watchman said:

hoa - check your attitude, dude.

Sorry, that'll teach me to skim, thought that's how it came from the shop, didn't read where you had already tried to sort it.

That other pic does show it to be an awkward design, how annoying.

[Watchman]

Matt_N said:

Sorry, that'll teach me to skim, thought that's how it came from the shop, didn't read where you had already tried to sort it.

That other pic does show it to be an awkward design, how annoying.

No worries. In that context, I would completely agree.

[Dammit]

That gear cable should be going to the right of the brake, not the left (as you stand behind the bike).

It does look tight, some Nokon housing might enable you to get round it, or go for one of those Campag/Tektro brakes I suppose - not sure how powerful those are though, they're meant to be fitted to TT bikes which don't really need brakes all that much.

[Watchman]

Dammit said:

That gear cable should be going to the right of the brake, not the left (as you stand behind the bike).

It does look tight, some Nokon housing might enable you to get round it, or go for one of those Campag/Tektro brakes I suppose - not sure how powerful those are though, they're meant to be fitted to TT bikes which don't really need brakes all that much.

Thanks. I did try installing the gear selector cable to the right originally, just to have a go at an alternative to the original set-up but it made no difference in terms of clearance however it did make the routing back to the brake lever more tricky.


The current brakes are very powerful. I'm quite impressed really. I am considering whether there's any possibility of using a brake J pipe or a Nokon housing to direct both gear cables out of the way, rather than re-direct the brake cables. The brake caliper itself positions the entry point (the adjuster) directly in the way of the gear selector cable frame mounts, so I can't see there being any benefit to redirecting the brake cables.

The biggest issue now is the left hand gear selector cable frame mount. As you turn to the left, the brake adjuster gets even closer to this left hand mount than the right hand one, to the point where you simply can't turn any further without causing damage to the screw adjuster. If I removed the adjuster altogether, I would have an extra 12-15mm which might be enough to route that gear selector cable out of the way. A Nokon housing might be just the trick but I'd end up with no screw adjust for the front mech. There are none on the brake levers.

I'll hand the bike back - see if this really is a problem for its owner - and work up a solution over the next week.


Thanks all.

[Jimbo.]

Bad design! The cable stops should be higher up on the headtube, or mounted under the downtube.

Re. front mech adjustment, you can get away with no adjuster as they're not sensitive enough. Granted it makes fine tuning a PITA, but if needs must...

[RGambo]

Got to agree with the OP and jumbo. The cable stop bosses are just in the wrong place.
Would one of these help?
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Shift-Cable-Cable-Guide-...

Move the stops to the down tube. Not sure if that one would actually fit but there might be others

[Watchman]

Cable stops... thanks for the terminology.


And thanks for all the advice. The cable routing is poor. I like the idea of that add-on cable stop but the down tube is a very wide diameter, however something like that would certainly do the job. I'll look into all the options and talk to the owner.

Thanks again.