"Take a few minutes to despair your situation." 😂🤣😂 This is my new motto for bike repairs!

A thin plastic bag tied to the end of the floss, one that can be pushed in the smaller hole of the down tube, will help the vacuum suction grab it better. A trick often used fishing conduit in electrical.

Another great video guys! 👍👍 Great tutorials. One of the best cable routing videos I've seen. Syd, you're a natural on the camera!

When I installed my dropper post I had a nightmare routing the cable until I used the shop vacuum method. However the key is to use yarn. Medium sized yarn has the correct surface area and flexibility to make it through some pretty tough turns. It didn’t work with any other type of string. I tried floss, twine, several others, then when I was desperate got some yard from my wife’s sewing kit. Worked like a charm!

AS you mentioned earlier, if manufacturers would simply have a channel for each cable not only would it save time, but also save everyone money in labor. Afterall, even back in the 90's when we were doing this, most bikes had channels. Great video!!

Your work is so good! Makes at home wrenching doable 👍🏼

I successfully used a vacuum to install a dropper post (no previous cable to follow) but didn't have to get around the BB. I suggest checking for other holes arid can be sucked into and block those with your hand. Newly found series and I'm enjoying.

just used the dental floss method. Worked like a charm after 30 min of trying to make the frame bend. Thanks Guys!

I use the shifter cable and housing chase method, especially on my carbon road bike. It uses full housing all the way through the frame with no internal guides. It is definitely a job of having patience.

That was pretty cool thanks syd and macky making life a little easier for the DYIers .

Well this was helpful in the extreme. After my brother and I wrestled with routing his cables a few months ago I wish I'd known this then. There's always the next bike though!

When wrapping the tape around the housing be carefully to feather it, a little lube on the tape works wonders as well. The vacuum and string trick works brilliantly on kayaks and surfskis, I put a tissue on the end of the string.

How often do you change housing? Or how often should you change your housing?

Nice work Syd

I build my first hard tail MTB this summer. I didn’t have the park tool kit, which at the time I didn’t know about that product. Routing the cables was the hardest part of the whole project. I cried a bit but eventually got them all ran. Then a week later I saw the park tool kit. Haha if I ever build another bike up that kit is the first thing on my list!

The $20 ZTTO knock off tool on ebay worked great on my Orange stage 5 build. Great work guys!

This is a really thorough exploration of the options available to route internal housing, I think. I think you even covered the situation I have with my Specialized Fuse in that my cable housing exits the downtube, then wraps around the bottom bracket before either entering a hole in the seat tube (for the dropper) or going to the back for the derailleur. I invested in two different cable routing tools. Both use the magnetic concept to try and pull a leader through the frame. The first is by Jagwire (I'm not really liking it too much) and the second one I bought was the Park Tool. My problem? The hole on the downtube where my shifter cable housing goes in was too small for the Park Tool tips, and I couldn't figure out how to use the pull string that has NO tip (I have since learned how to use it). The nice thing is, the bike on which I was working has a nice door at the bottom of the downtube that is big enough to help me get to the housing just before the bottom bracket. So on the Fuse, I truly don't need a tool to get the housing in place. But one day, when I work on my Trance or my Defy, I will likely need it as both of those have cables that run through the bottom brackets similar to what you're showing here.

this helped me route a rear brake cable on an old Klein Pulse frame, thanks !

fishing line and vacuum cleaner can work but suction has to be good. To ensure that, tape other holes in the frame so that air goes in and out only where you need it. Thin end on the vacuum cleaner helps as well. There is also another way you can try. If housing cable is out but inner is still in the frame just pass the new housing over it.

Nice look at all the potential fixes for the common miseries. I've done a decent amount of internal routing and used every trick in the book to pull it off when it went wrong (tying small nuts onto string and grabbing with those super strong whiteboard neodym magnets -- you can get them at Home Depot too, and just wrap tape on them to avoid scratches), wads of duck tape on zip ties, zip ties made into lassos, louder swears), but it's almost always a PITA. I built some internal cable routing into a custom carbon fiber bike I made my kid, including some channeling, then decided not to use it and put on external routing stops. I didn't want to have a fight on my hands whenever I re-cabled. Internal routing looks nice, but I'm getting too old and lazy to care. If you've got it, plan the swaps first! If you don't, run full jacketed cable the whole way, put some clear "racer" tape around the frame, zip tie there, and enjoy a ride rather than a cable fight.

Park's IR kit saved me. Got a '90s touring frame powder coated instead of repainting it, so everything had to be removed. Rear brake cable was internally routed. Straight shot through the top tube but couldn't get new cable or housing through manually. Vacuum method resulted in failure plus losing a piece of string inside the frame. Ordered Park's kit, waited a few days for it to arrive, and finished the job. Yeah, it isn't cheap and probably won't be used often, but restoring my sanity was worth it? I can always loan it out to friends in exchange for beer or sell it on ebay to recoup much of the cost. I've acquired a lot of tools on ebay for less than MSRP via those who sell them after using them once.

Top Tip - When using the dental floss method it's much easier to fish the inner cable through then using the inner cable as a guide for the much stiffer outer cable 👍

The floss worked great for me. The key was to tape off the top and bottom of the headset to create a more powerful vacuum through the frame.

Great video as always. =)

Just went through this for the first time. Tried the vacuum for a bit with no luck. Ended up taping a little piece of metal wire to some kite string and fishing it through with a strong magnet. Took a while to get it right but did eventually work! Man, was that ever a frustrating process!

20+year shop professional here... the other day I killed 3.5 hours trying to get the cables routed properly in a road bike. The wires ran naked through the downtube and should have been a simple install, but the first two times I ran them the rear derailleur wire got wrapped around the front so that the front shifting effected the rear trim🙄. Finally got that sorted, but then the rear was sluggish and hanging up somehow. Come to figure out that the brake hose had ended up spiral wrapped along the outside of the down tube such that no matter how I dropped the rear wire through it would rub and drag on the foam anti-rattle thing that the brake hose was run through. Fiddled around some more and finally got it all sorted, but what a freak’n time suck. And of course I cant charge my customer 200 in labor for replacing two cables. So glad its winter and I’ve got nothing else pressing.

Top tip: a tandem gear cable should be able to thread through a new AND the old housing. You'll usually need to trim the excess off the old housing where it exits the frame before you start, but otherwise you can pull the old housing out and install the new in one go.

One thing I've heard is to use the rockshox barb connector. Just screws into both housings/hoses and you pull it through

I really like when Syd make those comments such as the one regarding tools and the human brain development. The tone she uses is as she didn't really care about but I guess she really like science, she might be even a bit nerdy, which is great.

👍 for the Vacuum Thank You !

🤔 liking this Syd vibe....

Pushing the new cable in with the old cable is a genuinely awesome technique. Prior to getting a routing kit (which I absolutely swear by BTW), the amount of faffing about I spent trying to get cable through my Giant Defy was terrible. Tips for people using the vacuum cleaner technique... Make sure the string is going downhill, i.e. gravity assisted. This helps, a little bit.... PVC coated garden wire is pretty useful to push through. But, seriously, just buy a routing kit. They are absolutely magical and not particularly expensive Final pro tip when routing cables. Make sure you have a swear jar. The money you put in the jar when routing internal cables will probably pay for a house deposit......

Fun hack: mount a roll of electrical tape on a desk-type tape scoth tape dispenser so you can easily (one-handedly) pull and cut an appropriate length piece of tape (or tapé, if in France).

I use the vacuum trick for all sorts of things including running pull rope / pull tape though conduit for pulling wires for my past day job (electrician). If there is nothing for it to hang on along the path, a small plastic tied to the beginning of the string works really well. In a bike frame however, I can see it potentially getting snagged on coped joint points depending on the hole that the builder made in the intersecting tub. For bike frame, a small balloon like a water balloon will work better mainly because of size. I suspect that the problem ya'll had with the vacuum trick was a rough edge (burs on drilled pass though / vent holes) of one of the welded joints catching the floss causing it to hang up. Something like a piece or really light gauge (24ga or lighter) jacketed wire would have worked better since it that will still have good flexibility but have the jacket which would help keep if from getting snagged on any rough edges left during the frame build by the builder.

Yes... Having fought with running internal housing a few times, the first time I used the Park tool was eye opening - "well... that was easy..." Yes. It's expensive. No. You won't use it very often. But when you do use it, it's a wonderful tool. That said... I wonder if the tool could be duplicated by taking some 18g electronics wire, soldering a plain steel nub onto one end, and using a strong magnet to pull it through the frame, then taping the housing to the wire to pull it through the frame.

Were you using waxed floss? The stickiness of the wax would be a hindrance. I've had great success using that method, but using a sewing thread. Just put the spool next to the smaller hole, feed the end of the thread in, and put the vacuum on the bigger hole. Keep feeding in from the spool and keep good suction at the other end (cup your hand around the end of the vacuum hose to make a good seal). The thread emerges, then you tie the thread around a new cable. Pull the cable through using the thread. Now, you can feed the new housing through by sliding it onto the cable.

Great video. I wish I saw this yesterday. I lost my housing in the bike thing to "pull" instead of "pushing" it through. That lead to hours of attempting to fish it through. What a nightmare.

My cables are fairly easy to route, however, I have tried installing some housing wrap to calm some rattling down but that stuff doesn't move very freely inside the frame when trying to feed it in so it gets stuck and bunches up. Should tear the bike apart since there is a ton of snow and try to get it figured out before spring hits.

Also! If there is no housing in the bike, you can try to route the cable itself through the frame, which is more bendy and maneuverable. Then, you can slide the housing over that and it will follow the cable through the frame! These videos are awesome, keep 'em coming!!

Cracking vid. You have more patience and dental floss than me. 🤣

While yall were trying the vacuum method, I actually had the thought of using floss or fishing line, washer or something magnetic and a magnet to do essentially the same thing as the parktools tool

I pulled my dropper cable out with the internal one and it was a pain in the ass to get back in I took it to a bike shop they couldn’t to it. I just used a tiny nut and tied it to a fishing line and dropped in the seattube and the I wiggle the frame so the nut slides up the downturn and I was able to catch it with a magnet from the outside of the downtube. And then I could get it done after many hours and days of frustration

Vacuum cleaner works very well if you use ptfe plumbers tape or decorative nylon ribbon. Plug or seal all the routing wholes and bottle cage wholes with tape except the one your using . Feed ribbon from the front of the frame withe vacuum on the seat tubes ensuring that there is a good seal for maximum suction Definitely quicker than chasing a magnet .

If you had a smaller extension for your vacumm that made a tight seal over the dropper post it would create more suction

As with everything in life, magnets once again to the rescue. 😂

Yarn worked for me as well with a vacuum cleaner.

I do love these vids. 12 feet of dental floss! 😂

I was one of the dummies to pull the whole thing out, then realized the little thing at the end of the cable gets stuck in the entrance of the housing cable frame, and had to re rout it by using a shirt wired hanger, bent a small hook at the end of it and a small flashlige to peek through the seat post frame, and try to hook the end of the housing cable, and then pull up with the hanger and at the same time push cable from the other side. Twisting the cable from the other end helps the cable center at the bottom.

Wew awesome!

Yeahhhh, I wasted a lot of time with the vacuum method, dental floss, cotton thread, string. Fail, fail, fail. Seemed to get bunched up and stuck in the frame if it was thin material and it just would not come through if too thick a material. Pretty frustrating task. Great video, I gave up and bought the tool.

I've used a combination of a shop vac and air compressor, blowing string from one end and vacuuming from the other

Great video. Always wondered how this is done. That Park tool looks the business, but what would you do with a steel-framed bike?!

I installed a dropper post on my daughters Fuel EX8 what a nightmare I finally got the vacuum with some 1/4” ribbon past the bottom bracket the park tool seams like a great tool.

Remove bottom bracket. Works always for powder coating where nothing stays in/on the frame.

Question: I tried seeing what is inside the frame through the internal cable port, because there was rattle noises, but I ended up accidentally ripping off the port since it was rubber. What should I do? Do I just go to a mechanic for him to take out the cables, put some internal housing damper on and put a new port or do I try something myself?

I ran a 200' piece of fishing line through an electrical conduit with a shop vac. The fishing line was tied around a piece of cotton ball. :)

Just put a drop of CA glue on the cable, each end, insert into casing and let dry or spray with activator. Pull as needed. Once pulled, simply cut the section with CA glue off and proceed with mounting.

Thanks that was great. I met someone who used a small dog to rewire his old stone farmhouse. He sent the dog into the wall cavity with string tied to it and called it out through a hole at the other end of the wall. Maybe bike techs could use the same technique with a smaller animal? A mouse maybe or a beatle?

Thanks for these tips! It always such fun to play with internal routing!!

Can tell that ridley bike has been smart and let the cable go thru a Rubber hose at the full leght of the frame ant that's make the jobb really easy

welp, i'm definitely buying one of those parktool kits.

If we removed the housing before only. You can insert the wire inside the housing and you can use a magnet to work your way around. Like how you do with the internal housing kit...😎😎

this is great except I have a routing tube and can't find it from the seatpost end(ends up outside of routing tube in frame) and it just gets stuck from front stem about 2-3 inches from seatpost...ugh so frustrating. I feel like such a moron for not affixing electrical tape to the existing torn up housing cable!!! It's a specialized 2022 enduro comp btw...so any tricks on that would be greatly appreciated

It's a lot easier if you just remove the cranks and pull the bottom bracket, assuming it's thread in.

Pro Tip for routing internal cables: 1) Tie a long piece of thread at the end of the new cable. 2) Put the new cable into one end of the internal cable route 3) Take a small small (hair size) metal cable, like a piece from a used brake cable. 4) Make a hook on one end of the small small cable. 5) Put the small small cable hook end into the other end of the internal cable route 6) Now twist the small small metal cable with your fingers 7) As you twist, the hook end will make circular motion and grab on to the thread. 8) Remember, the thread is attached to the new cable that you want to pass through. 9) Pull on the thread you will pull on the cable. works every time, you don't need stinking vacuum or magnet.

Fishing line and magnets finally worked for me on a 900 gram chinesium fiber hard tail. But the cables just rattle around inside making so much noise that I hate to ride it. So better, if you have that kind of routing, post the frame on craigslist and spare yourself the disappointment.

Call bike shop, and if I had pulled the cable housing out, call bike shop and lie 🤣🤣

Is it a terrible idea to drill a few holes in my frame so I can internally rout them?

Did you record all episodes in just one go?

You need a little piece of grocery bag like a parachute at the end of the dental floss,tape off any holes and cup your hand around the end of the hose.

Dental floss works, maybe your vacuum doesn't suck enough. You just hold the vac on the seat tube and let the floss feed in, no cable needed to start with; unless your frame leaks vacuum elsewhere.

Do you have a video of internal routing on a full suspension MTB....???

Darn it, I thought this video would be Syd drilling holes in a frame as a " internal cable routing hack". All jokes aside, great video!

How does running internal brake hoses vary, as if the hose is connected to the caliper by a banjo, you can only feed the new hose the opposite way, when disconnected at the brake lever the hose must go from lever to caliper, then new hose has to go caliper to lever, no way you can use the old hose to guide the new one. Any hacks for this?

Anyone know how they have a bottle cap as a stem cap!?

After having to replace the housing on a Gazelle E-bike, nothing is hard anymore.

“Bikes are not magnetic” ... me 🧐 at my steel bike

Would you ever just prefer external cable routing? Or is internal routing that much more amazing ; ).

"Bikes are not magnetic"............Unless they are steel......

what name of magnetic cable?

I take offense to your comment that bikes aren't magnetic. Steel seems to be coming back. Lot's of custom frame builders like it because it is easy to work with.

I have an old aluminum 26" full suspension bike with external cable routing, but I wanted to install a dropper. So I drilled a hole in the frame at the top, a hole before the bottom bracket and another hole in the seat post tube. I pushed fishing line through each hole and then pulled on it to get the cable out of the frame. It took a couple of hours, but it worked. I've put a few hundred miles on it, no signs of metal fatigue around the holes I drilled. If it does fail, that just gives me an excuse to buy a newer bike.

Great video but never clamp your top tube! It's the weakest part of the frame.

H and I have been working on the

This sucks. I'm trying to fish out stuck a cable housing that's stuck on the bottom of the dropper tube and its SUCKS. The pain is immeasurable, kill me.

I'm just looking for a comment saying the vacuum worked

Does anyone else hit "like" before the video starts?

Wow. That does not look fun. Hope I never have to do that. Thanks syd

15 minute video to tell you to get the shimano cable kit.

This is what it sounded like when i was doing method two on my 17 rdo.kzfaq.info/get/bejne/lceXgtGiyqvJiKs.html

Wish you could make an easier to do video:(! This video sucks. Bye for now..-Karen

наша девченка сразу видно рукастая хорошие родители воспитали и научили такой в жизни ничего не страшно и деток вырастит и починит любую поломку МОЛОДЧИНА,