A question for the Kestrel guys. I have a Talon about 7-8 years old. It therefore has internal cabling but not an inner tubing inside the frame. I normally replace cables regularly and therefore use string to pull the new cable thorugh. My front cable has broken and I can’t get the new front gear cable to pop out the exit hole at the bottom of the down tube. There must be an easier way than just keep pushing it down in the hope it comes thorugh. Can anyone give some advice… PLEASE.
LOL… unfortunately there is not an easier solution. I first suggest you get you self a good small LED flashlight to see if you are even close to finding the exit. You can either get really lucky and get it on the first try…or be trying all day. Of the several bikes I have had with internal routing the kestrel was by far the hardest to run cables if you are doing it from scratch. This is one of those projects where luck, patience, and probably a six pack comes in very handy. Good luck.
Thanks - I did the six pack the other night whilst trying. It’s the most frustrating thing ever.
I have the same bike, tried to re-wire the bike once… never again. The wrench at my LBS hates the routing system on this bike.
Sill it looks pretty mean when it’s race time.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3376/3244329167_55349bbe9d.jpg
My other suggestion is to got to a hardware store and try and find some really stiff plastic tubing, some that can bend but is not too flimsy, and attempt to run that first and then send the cables through that.
You may also want to find some narrow gauge, stiff but bendable wire, like copper or even a good high quality metal coat hanger like material, tape the cable to that and try to get it to where it needs to go. It gives you a bit more control and direction. Just careful not damage the frame if you got with the metal option.
The cable routing is supposedly better in the 2009 models. Not that this is relevant to the present case.
I have found the best method is to use some thin piano wire purchased from a RC plane shop, you can bend it if you need to. Then feed it in one end and use the flashlight at the other end to see which way to manipulate it. Once you have it through attach the end of the cable to be pulled through to the wire with heat shrink tubing and pull through very gently while someone else feeds the wire.
The older Talons can be frustrating to feed cable through, but they arent even close to the Kleins.
Kevin
Thanks Kevin - I’ll buy some tomorrow and give that a go. At the moment I’m doing 5 mins on, 15 mins off as I’m so fed up. At least its the Superbowl later so I have a good excuse to drink whilst keeping at it.
Thanks Kevin - I’ll buy some tomorrow and give that a go. At the moment I’m doing 5 mins on, 15 mins off as I’m so fed up. At least its the Superbowl later so I have a good excuse to drink whilst keeping at it.
This sounds odd, but I’m completely serious, as this is the method that I use each year to run new cables in my Talon. I take a length of dental floss and place it in the top cable hole, I then take my wife’s vacuum cleaner and place the suction hose at the bottom hole. The floss gets pulled through the frame; I tie the top end of the floss to the der. cable, and pull it through. Less than a five minute job to get the cable through the frame.
got a Airfoil Pro that’s about like a Talon in this regard. Floss & vacuum sounds like something i’ll try; too bad it won’t help with the little holder under the BB for the rear der…
Straighten out a wire hanger and feed it through. then use electrical tape to take the cable to the hanger and pull it through.
Thanks Kevin - I’ll buy some tomorrow and give that a go. At the moment I’m doing 5 mins on, 15 mins off as I’m so fed up. At least its the Superbowl later so I have a good excuse to drink whilst keeping at it.
This sounds odd, but I’m completely serious, as this is the method that I use each year to run new cables in my Talon. I take a length of dental floss and place it in the top cable hole, I then take my wife’s vacuum cleaner and place the suction hose at the bottom hole. The floss gets pulled through the frame; I tie the top end of the floss to the der. cable, and pull it through. Less than a five minute job to get the cable through the frame.
YES! The dental floss trick (any small flexible string/twine will work) is easy and foolproof. But it won’t give you a handy excuse to drink 
But, it can be avoided if before you remove your olde cables you push through a piece of plastic tubing over the existing cable. Tape the tubing down so it won’t slip out, then remove the cable. After you push the new cable through, remove the tubing. Easy easy easy. Remember what order everything came off and just reverse the order of pieces (cable, housing, ferrules, etc). Done it many times and it’s easy.
Just want to chime in. You have received some very good advice so far.
We use copper wire from a home store to fish cables when they have broken inside the frame. Make sure to put a slight bend at the end of the cable to help guide it
I personally have never tried the dental floss or string and a vacuum method but it’s worth trying.
For 2009 and forward, we have corrected the cable routing to be much easier to navigate as well as improve shifting. I no that won’t help you but figured for anyone considering a new Kestrel, it’s the first thing I addressed when taking over the brand.
I’ve done it probably 20 times over the years with a Talon, KM40, and more recently an AirFoil. Unfortunately, I still don’t have a great method. One thing that does help is to use a wire that’s stiff enough that you can kink one end a little as mentioned above. That way, when you rotate the wire, you’re changing the direction its trying to find the hole. Its also strong enough to push aside any debris in the down tube. I’ve never actually seen the inside, but it certainly feels as if there’s carbon flakes just hangin out in there. I tried the floss trick and I think I got it to work once. Problem is, if the path between the two holes is significantly blocked, the floss approach may not work. My girlfriend’s km40 has a little flap of carbon that likes to lay down right over the exit for the cable ;(
What I usually do is get the coat hanger or wire through, super glue or tape floss to it, pull the hanger back out the way I put it in. Then superglue/tape the cable to the floss and pull it through one final time. This avoids pulling the hanger or wire all the way through the frame. I always put a little elec tape on the frame by the upper hole so I don’t scatch the paint with the wire.
Good luck, it can be very frustrating. As I think someone else mentioned, make very sure you have all the housing and ferels back on and it the right order before you commit. Nothing worse than having to do it again once you finally found it 
-David
Go to a hardware store or autoparts store and buy one of those extendable pointers with a magnet on the end. Push that up the frame until you grab the cable and feed it down slowly. Took me 10 minutes to do all of the cables.
Ok this is going to sound ridiculous but it also works…
If you can get a crocheting hook (long needle with a hinged hook on the end), tear off the hinged bit and it makes a perfect cable hook. We use them at the LBS I work at on cervelo’s that have the bladder blocking the exit ports for the cables, it has also worked on quite a few of the Kestrel’s we have gotten in. The dental floss idea has also worked but we ran out of it in the shop and nobody has since seen a dentist.
If this doesn’t work get out your hacksaw, cut the downtube of the bike, find the cable router and curse at it in Italian, then go to your LBS and get a new bike.
These all seem like awesome suggestions. Personally I’ve only ever tried the straightened coat hanger and it worked pretty alright. So far it only happened once and now I’m ultra-careful about re-routing the plastic tubing when I’m redoing my cables.
A question for the Kestrel guys. I have a Talon about 7-8 years old. It therefore has internal cabling but not an inner tubing inside the frame. I normally replace cables regularly and therefore use string to pull the new cable thorugh. My front cable has broken and I can’t get the new front gear cable to pop out the exit hole at the bottom of the down tube. There must be an easier way than just keep pushing it down in the hope it comes thorugh. Can anyone give some advice… PLEASE.
I did the same thing. The easy thing to do is feed the cable in backwards, starting from the bottom bracket area and push it up through the down tube. Use a bent paper clip and a flashlight to grab the cable and pull it though the larger opening in the down tube. Now you have a cable that is in backwards but…just attach string to it and pull the string through. Then use the string to pull the cable through the right way. Last time I did this, it was a 5 minute fix. Easy.
Mike