I am gathering parts to convert my 2015 Felt AR5 from a standard road bike to a tri bike. I have a Tririg Alpha One aerobar on the way, along with a Tririg Omega One aero break.
Internal cables are new to me. Having watched videos, read the bike user manual, and consulted the interwebs, I am no closer to understanding what I need to do. I have never changed the cables on this bike myself. But I have worked on my bikes forever, so I see no reason this should be difficult. But I’m lost.
When I begin removing the existing drop bars, I planned to undo all cables from the breaks and derailleurs, then pull them out like normal from the STI shifters Then, with all cables removed from the bike, remove the drop bars entirely from the fork, and put the Tririg bar on and begin cabling.
But now it seems like there are a ton of steps I am missing about threading mousetail through the bike FIRST before removing the old cables. But that is confusing because I thought the bike already had that stuff inside to guide the existing cables. Also, if that stuff is already in there, are the end caps resuable? I just don’t understand if I am making this way too complicated or if I legit risk having one hell of a weekend when I sit down to do this and realize external cables were awesome to use for so long.
Does anyone have some experience with this bike (or close year), or similar set up to help me understand what step to take to make this as painless as possible?
Mine does have little plastic sleeves, but they end in the down tube and don’t connect past the cable guide in the bottom bracket area, so are kind of useless. Easiest thing is to take an additional plastic sleeve (if you have one, bike shop will have some if not as they come on new frames to aid in cable installation), and thread it on to the cable and pull it through.
You’ll have to take out the cable guide under the bottom bracket to access things (pry it out with a flathead). Even if you don’t have a plastic sleeve, you can still drop the cable down and fish it out through that opening behind the bottom bracket. Paper clips work well for this.
You can expect it to take twice as long as you initially expect, in my experience, but it’s not bad. I’ve done it probably 8-9 times.
To conform, you are saying those plastic sleeves only (currently) go from where the two shift cables enter the downtube near the handlebars to the bottom bracket? You are also suggesting threading new sleeves the whole way through for both shift cables to help guide the new cables?
Do you keep the cable sleeves in the bike for the new cables?
How does the bottom break cable work? That is the one that goes in the top of the frame - does the cable housing for that one thread all the way through the bike, or is that cable like the shift cables and it is “naked” inside the frame?