It has suddenly turned cold these past few days.
It’s that time of year when the cracks on my hands from working in the pit become a concern.
I leave the cracks on my hands to hand cream and natural healing, but a bicycle doesn’t have the power of natural healing, so you have to maintain it to fix it.
Where do cracks happen on a bicycle?
The most common place is the tire sidewall.
After the summer, when the rubber has already degraded, the cold weather causes the sidewalls to crack, so please be careful.
This can lead to punctures.
However, the focus of today is not tire cracks.
Another place on a bicycle that can crack is the cable end cap.
While metal cable end caps rarely crack, plastic ones can break due to excessive force or aging, so periodic checks are necessary.
Generally, brake caps are almost always metal, but there are many plastic caps used for shift cables.
Even just looking at Shimano’s offerings, there are 5 types for brakes and 10 types for shifting, which are designed to be used based on the model and application, so you need to choose the right one for the right place.
As you can see in the catalog, there is an entire page dedicated just to cable end caps.
This crack is easy to overlook at a glance, but as an example of how to spot it, be careful if there is a gap in the cable end cap as shown in the photo below.
If you look at the opposite side of this gap, it looks like this.
It’s split wide open.
You can’t expect smooth shifting like this, and it needs to be replaced before it grows into a major problem.
This time, I could have replaced it with the same plastic one, but this part of the Gevenalle (RetroShift) system cracks particularly often, so I replaced it with a metal one instead of plastic.
Now the shifting will be smooth, and it shouldn't crack unless something extreme happens.
It’s a minor thing, but these small, cumulative details lead to smooth braking and shifting performance, so please check yours when you have the time, and replace them if you find anything wrong.
There is only a little time left in the best riding season, so let’s pay attention to the small details and enjoy a smooth ride!!