Been fighting with sticky brake cables for months, finally tried something different

I used to just lube my housing ends and call it good, but after 4 months of gritty Shimano cable feel I finally pulled the housing off a customer's Trek mountain bike and saw the liner was all chewed up inside. Swapped to Jagwire compressionless housing last week and the lever feel went from muddy to crisp in about 20 minutes of work. Has anyone else had that big a difference just from changing the housing type?

3 comments

3 Comments

amy_martin3d agoRising Star

Nah, compressionless helps but you still gotta clean the liner out first though.

amy_martin3d agoRising Star

Wait is this really that big of a deal for most people though? I mean yeah the liner gets a little grimy but it's not like it's blocking the whole airflow or something. I've been running the same basic hose setup for like three winters and I just give it a quick rinse when the season ends. Never had any major gunk issues. Feels like sometimes folks overthink this stuff and start buying all sorts of accessories when the old way works fine. Maybe I just got lucky with my climate or something but it never seemed worth getting heated hoses or fussing over compression.

olivia6703d ago

Oh for real! I actually had way less trouble when I switched to a heated hose setup, that warmth stops the gunk from sticking in the first place. Lol everyone fights with cleaning the liner but the real hack is just not letting it build up at all.