Saturday, July 30, 2005

With Few Exceptions...

...the more enthusiastic about something, the more zealously evangelical, the more foaming-at-the-mouth religious, the less interested my wife usually is. The latest casualty to this phenomenon is the set of bullhorns I insisted on installing on her commuter/beater bike. Actually, it is less a matter of taste and more a matter of fit for her. Today her new Modolos arrived- as sweet of a set of ergonomic bars as there ever were. Trouble is, it is no quick feat to swap out bars- especially with an old-school Cinelli stem (that is not open face). Double especially since I'd routed the cables internally with the horns. Triple so in that I cannot reuse the bar tape. Quadruple in that the housings needed to be cut down. Tip: rather than donating a kidney to purchase a Park Tool cable cutter, the Dremel-wannabe works just fine. I think I'll wait to make sure everything is positioned well before I tape them up. I'm no longer swimming in extra rolls.

2 comments:

Nathan said...

Hmm, if you cut the housing with a Dremel-ish tool, you could probably skip the filing/grinding to get a smooth end, wouldn't you think? Hmm...

filtersweep said...

Actually, the heat from the "blade" can sort of melt part of the housing. The end is smooth, but I sometimes need to ream out the housing by poking it with a nail. It actually works very well- and it definitely doesn't crush the housing. I also cut the actual cable with the cutting tool. My wire cutters never can cut without fraying.