Stretch the Cables When Replacing a Mountain Bike Housing Cable

Video Transcript

"And now the next step is stretching the cables, and so, to stretch the cables, I am actually just going to sit here, and, without moving the shifter, I am going to, I mean, without moving the cranks, I'm going to push on the shifter to stretch things out. You can see I've already got a little bit of slack in there. That's from the housing that's from the housing fully seating, and also a little bit of it is the stretching of the chain. And I'm just going to take out the rest of it by loosening it and pulling the derailleur just snug. You don't want the derailleur?s to be tight, and if it'[s a little loose, you have plenty of turns for that barrel adjuster up at the handlebars to take it up. So now we're going over here. I up shifted; it didn't up shift yet. It feels like the cable tension's probably a little bit low. So to get around that, I'm going to put on a couple of dials. That feels about right. When you do this enough, you sort of get an experience by plucking the cable like a musician tuning a stringed instrument. So, yes, that feels like it was right. I'm up shifting a heck of a lot easier than I was ten minutes ago. Down, down, down... So now we have installed a new derailleur housing and shift cable combo, and, in the next step, we're going to run through, just making sure that everything is set up correctly."