Saw a shop in Denver using heat shrink on derailleur cables

Was visiting my cousin last weekend and stopped into a random bike shop off Colfax. The mechanic there was wrapping derailleur cables with heat shrink tubing before running them through the housing. He said it stops fraying and makes cable swaps cleaner. Took him like 2 minutes per cable. Has anyone else tried this or does it just add unnecessary work?

2 comments

2 Comments

webb.xena7d ago

Oh man, that's actually kinda genius... I tried doing something similar once but with electrical tape and it looked like a toddler wrapped it. Ended up with this sticky gooey mess that took forever to clean off. Heat shrink seems way cleaner though, I might have to steal that trick for my janky old bike that's held together with hope and zip ties.

hart.zara7d ago

Gotta disagree a bit here. Heat shrink is great and all but electrical tape done right actually holds up better in the long run, especially on a bike that gets bounced around. The trick is to stretch the tape as you wrap it and overlap each layer by half, then it fuses into basically a solid rubber sleeve. Yeah it gets a lil gooey if you use cheap tape or leave it in the sun too long, but proper 3M stuff doesn't do that. Plus heat shrink can crack and split over time from vibration which is exactly what happens on a janky bike.