Did you ask him that? Did he explain why?

If he measured your chain and said it needs to be replaced, it probably needs to be replaced. I've broken a chain and crashed before. It's better to replace a chain before it breaks.

He may be just trying to upsell you, but you started this by saying it's your "use it and abuse it" bike which makes me think your bike probably needs maintenance.

It's hard to know exactly without seeing it but you may have let everything go so far that if a new cable is installed it may not shift well.
If he's going to say it's fixed and it stops working in two weeks the customer is going to blame him for breaking their bike.

But then again he may be pulling your leg, shops are so busy with service around here they don't need to do that but your area may be different.

Pictures may help.

How was it shifting before the cable broke? If it was working fine, I'd just buy a new cable and install it yourself at that point...

Yep, take the bike home and replace the cable yourself.

Buy the cable from Amazon or eBay.

They're taking the piss.

Yes the drive train may be really worn. But if the old cable shifted the rear derailleur OK, the new one certainly will.
And the front mech is irrelevant.

He's f'ing around with you.
Go to another LBS

The shifter was getting very hard to push for a while.

 


Thanks. I'll check another LBS.

I had a commuter-beater mtn bike that I actually didn't abuse, but was bought used and wasn't current-gen. Different situation that the OP, but I was also thinking a cable change might help (I had no tools at the time, no space in my small studio apt to even consider doing my own bike work).

The two shops I went to in LA flat-out refused to do any work on the bike. These weren't snobby bike shops either, they were legit, well utilized ones that I was already bringing my Cervelo to. Told me it straight up it wasn't worth their time/effort to work on a bike like mine. And my bike wasn't a piece of trash - I rode it nearly every week in addition to commuting on mtn bike trails pretty hard, so even if it was a cheap bike, it worked well enough for serious riding.

It might have been an easy instafix, but I will admit that more likely than not, these cheap drivetrains, once they go out of whack, cause more headache than it's worth trying to tune them. And then the bike store gets the blame when things aren't 'just right'.

Ok.answer A. There is no compatibility issue that means a new cable would require the drivetrain to be replaced. So recable.

But. My bet is answer B. You didn't say which shift cable has broken, nor if the drivetrain is 8/9/10 speed. By should of things, your description, this has been well used, and so there is a good chance the chain, chainrings and cassette need to be replaced. As for the mechs, the rear jockey wheels could be toast and for the front, for all I know the cause of the cable break was that the mech has seized or partially seized. So in some situations then if there was that much that needed replacing doing it as a full set would make sense.

Either way the communication between the mechanic and yourself have been better

But to be absolutely clear to the OP.
Just because the chain / rings / jockey wheels / mechs are really worn, that no reason to not just change the cable.
And the 8/9/10/11/12 speed is irrelevant.

If it was the mech that was half seized, same thing the rings and chain and cassette do not need to be changed.

What you can do to check is simply disconnect the cable at the derailleur. 1 Allen key needed only on 1 screw !
Then with the bike upside down turn the pedals. The derailleur should be in the smallest cog. Just push the derailleur body across whilst pedalling and check it moves across OK. (Just watch where you put your fingers so you don't jam them in the rotating wheel or cassette. - ouch !).

2nd, then try the shifter (/ pulling the cable back out) whilst it's disconnected to the derailleur. It should be smooth and easy. If its chewy and sticky or rough... there's your problem.

A pound to a pinch of shit, the cable will have just got sticky and maybe have a broken frayed strand or two inside the housing (the 'outer' cable) or near the shifter. A £2 part. I'd maybe change the outer at the same time. £5 for inner + outer to do both front and rear at at Wiggle.
https://www.wiggle.co.uk/...amp;utm_content=mckv|sl4f0CCF3_dm|mcrid|295292317327|mkw||mmt||mrd|5360621409uk|mslid||&mkwid=sl4f0CCF3_dm&pcrid=295292317327&prd=5360621409uk&pgrid=58852352866&ptaid=aud-967287486445:pla-523199302738&gclid=CjwKCAiAxeX_BRASEiwAc1QdkUk-58gbQdBzo_yYthZVqmLT649lpyc5WQM5WXir7X6zaJZQ9mj00RoCofYQAvD_BwE#reviewsSection


The chain + rings + cassette on my 3rd worst old mtb (20+ year old bike) are worn to buggery. Still works fine for a bike for when I'm camping or commuting. The chain is at about 2% stretch. Any bike shop would want to get me to spend £200-300 to renew the drive. I'd not use it in that condition for an ironman. But as a beater bike ? It's fine.

I won't work on a customer's drivetrain if the chain is worn out of spec, just too much liability risk. Heck, I've got a scar on my chin from pushing that envelope too far myself. So, I check the chain when I do something like replace a derailleur cable. Especially on an old, well used bike. Most (all, really) good professional mechanics do.
So, ok... chain was out of spec. Gotta replace that.
If you're going to replace the chain, you need to check the cassette. Is that worn enough that a new chain will just skip on it? Same exact story as the chain.
So, ok... cassette was out of spec. Gotta replace that.
Then you check the derailleur pulleys. Do they look like throwing stars?
Whoops... gotta' replace those too.
If the pulleys are *that* worn, what do the pivots on the derailleurs look like? Well, crap... those are shot too.

This is pretty much an every damn day scenario at a busy bike repair operation.

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Tech writer/support on this here site. FIST school instructor and certified bike fitter. Formerly at Diamondback Bikes, LeMond Fitness, FSA, TiCycles, etc.
Coaching and bike fit - http://source-e.net/ Cyclocross blog - https://crosssports.net/ BJJ instruction - https://ballardbjj.com/

They can just replace the cable. The bike will sift just as well/poorly as it did before the cable broke. That might not be as "good" as the bike shop wants to make it (and doesn't want you to complain about crappy shifting post-repair).

They probably checked the chain for stretch (it's actually wear on the rollers, but causes the chain to elongate). It's a simple tool that will give you one of three recommendations:

-Stretch <0.75: all good
-Stretch between 0.75 and 1.0: replace chain
-Stretch >1.0: replace chain and cassette (since the cassette teeth may have excessive wear to mate with the stretched chain).


You can tell the shop, " just the cable for now." If they are not OK with that then buy the cable (from them or online) and do it yourself.

IME, it always makes sense to buy the longer 2m cable. You can always cut off the excess, but having the cable come up just a bit short (common with tri bars and internal routing) sucks.

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ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
Depression, Neurocognitive problems, Dementias (Testing and Evaluation), Trauma and PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

There is no reason to go to another shop.

Buy the cable and replace it yourself. Takes a couple minutes.

This may be the case here. They just didn't say. But I may try to do it myself.

I do all of my own wrenching and wrenched in a shop part time for a bit. We have a chain checker at the cash register and whenever the bike comes in we spend 5 minutes looking it over with the customer.

I can’t count the amount of times we turn people away because a 200-300$ drive train replacement is just not worth it on a 500$ bike...unless you get parts and do it yourself. I’m guessing that in this case it was your typical busy and surly shop mechanic who didn’t feel like articulating that he just didn’t want to invest the time or effort for something the customer is unlikely to be happy with (price).

Maurice

As the others have said the drive train is probably so worn the replacing one bit (the chain) would mean nothing meshes anymore.

I had a right carry on with a local social enterprise LBS project that I feel bad a bout.

Mtb bb was goosed so I decided to take it there for a new bb and service. All done new cables too.

Then when I went to ride it it was all to pot. The first issue was they'd fitted the wrong bb, a shimano one not sram that has a slight taper so it was all wobbly. I'd messed about a bit myself first trying to see what was wrong before realising and taking it back.

Got it back fixed and a new chain. All good so I thought until the first time I went off for a day ride with a mate. Thankfully he's no rider so I managed ok but the chain was skipping in lots of gears.

Essentially with the new chain nothing sat right. I guess in the shop they just checked it in the workstand , not under pedalling pressure?

I ended up changing jockey wheels,. cassette and inner chain ring myself and it's all been fine since. And I do all my stuff myself now, or with the help of a friend of needed.

As others have said in your case probably just change the cable yourself and it'll probably bumble along fine for a knock about bike, but change one bit of drive train (i.e. the chain he identified) and it'll pretty much all need changing if it's that worn.

From the OP: "Broken rear derailleur cable"

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Pink? Maybe. Maybe not. You decide.

Well if you're going to be all pedantic. 😁😂
In my defence I am getting an eye operation today, so should be able to read properly again. In that case I'm going to guess at the front mech just being with out at the pivot leading to the 'replace' call. I've done that myself once, but it did take 40,000 miles of hilly commuting in shitty Manchester rain. (Ok, 39,500 miles in rain, 300 in Manchester snow, 170 in Manchester hail and perhaps one day it was sunny). So either your commute hack is truly fubar and held together by rust and grime, or the mechanic is saying the truth, it's time to change, but didn't talk to you about if you were persuing a run to the ground approach and if so the risks.

So, in summary. Cable, cheap and in all likelihood would work. 10 mins following the instructions on Park tools website or equivalent.

However, sounds like drivetrain is beyond end of life so indexing could be hard work and there is a good chance you will need to have an excuse ready for being late when something breaks on the way into work in the next few months.


As an aside, for a committee hack bike, a scotoiller system is amazing. Once installed it saved me so much maintenance time and money on chains and cassettes. I was getting through a chain every month with a clean and lube every Wednesday and Saturday and cassettes every 3 months.