13. Cabling the brakes

Cabling breaks - click to enlarge
Cabling brakes

Cable the brakes: Cables are crucial to safe riding and should be in pristine condition. Check cables regularly for fraying, damaged or kinked outer casing and so on. It is advisable to change cables regularly - shops like Wilkinsons sell cables very cheap so there is no excuse.

The cabling procedure is described below:

  1. Insert the barrel-end of the cable into the brake lever housing and bed the cable in the plastic groove and through cable adjuster and the locknut
  2. Tense the cable by pulling the cable with your hands, away from the lever and squeeze the brake lever a few times to check that the cable is bedded properly
  3. Grease the length of the cable using a toothbrush
    4. Front brake component is cabled - click to enlarge
    Front cables
  4. Thread the cable through the cable adjuster eye and then through the cable clamp bolt (which should have a hole drilled through it)
  5. Cut the cable to the required length, about 6cm below the cable clamp bolt the cable itself should be of sufficient length and loosen the cable inner to hang loose
  6. Insert the greased cable into the outer casing and thread through make sure that the outer casing has a ferrule attached to the end that will bed into the lever
  7. Tense the cable by pulling the cable with your hands, away from the lever and squeeze the brake lever a few times to check that the cable is bedded properly
    8. Rear brake component is cabled - click to enlarge
    Rear cables
  8. Bed the ferrule into the brake lever housing and once again, tense the cable by pulling the cable with your hands, away from the lever and squeeze the brake lever a few times to check that the cable is bedded properly, but this time, with the outer casing bedded into the locknut and cable adjuster in the lever
  9. Snip the outer casing to the required length and attach a ferrule
  10. Bed the ferrule into the cable adjuster and thread the inner cable through the eye and into the cable clamp bolt and tighten the cable
  11. Finish off by attaching cable ends another crucial, but often overlooked step
  12. Adjust the brakes by using the third hand tool (or a friend even) to clamp the brakes close to the rim and then pulling the cable down to increase tension and then tightening the cable clamp bolt
  13. Finally, test by squeezing the levers you should have maximum braking with a third of the travel in the levers (about 1.5cm)