32-hole wheels, under the BB guides and threadless headsets all lower costs for the manufacturers. They also carry some benefits for the consumer. It's nice when both side benefit. 32-hole wheels: Slightly lighter, and with most modern rims, plenty strong for most riders. under the BB guides: smoother line to the der's, and the "recent" addition of cheap, replacable plastic guides further enhances cable motion. Much easier to clean the BB area, too. Aheadsets: much lighter for the same stifness, easier to set bearing adjustment, not more scratched locknuts, easier to get a replacement fork (the downside, setting bar height, is obvious).
To the person who suggested under BB routing is an MTB thing, I'd say, "no." Racing bikes had under the BB routing in the early 80's, before MTBs really had their influence on the bike market. When you see top-tube routed cables on road bikes, that will be the influence of MTBs.
Tom Dalton Bethlehem, PA
Sheldon Brown <CaptBike@sheldonbrown.com> wrote: Brandon Ives wrote:
>Something that I've always wondered about is when and why folks
>switched to under the BB cable routing. I've always preferred the
>above routing since the cables are shorter and put them more out of
>the way of road grime, plus it gives the housing less bend and a
>better line to the RD. I can understand for production that
>drilling and tapping a 5m hole is much easier than soldering on two
>hard to jig tiny cable guides. I would think many of the custom
>builders would have kept it as a feature that was superior to the
>way they do production bikes. So can anyone clarify the history of
>under the BB routing and give me any good reasons to do it that way
>beyond it's easier?
I believe this is mainly a mountain bike innovation. I remember working on early MTBs that had above-the-bb routing, and having it interfere with front derailer adjustment. MTBs used smaller chainrings and big-cage, wide-range front derailers, and sometimes you couldn't get the derailer mounted low enough for good shifting without having the tail of the cage foul the rear derailer cable.
Once this became the norm for MTBs, and it became clear that it worked OK and was CHEAPER, it was a no-brainer to extend it to all derailer bikes.
This is a bit like the move from 36 to 32 spoke wheels. Usedta be that only very exotic time-trial bikes had 32. Thus, 32 spokes acquired cachet and manufacturers discoveret that they could save the cost of supplying and installing 8 spokes per bike and the customers would consider it a FEATURE! What a deal!
The same thing is driving the move to threadless headsets...the manufacturers get credit for "higher performance" and get to save considerable spondulix.
Sheldon "Spinning The Cut Corners" Brown Newtonville, Massachusetts +--------------------------------------------------------+ | Several excuses are always less convincing than one. | | --Aldous Huxley | +--------------------------------------------------------+ Harris Cyclery, West Newton, Massachusetts Phone 617-244-9772, 617-244-1040, FAX 617-244-1041 http://harriscyclery.com Hard-to-find parts shipped Worldwide http://captainbike.com Useful articles about bicycles and cycling http://sheldonbrown.com _______________________________________________
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