is anyone running mechanical shifting with aero (stem) routing?

[Dr Luxurious]

Planning my next bike...

The frameset runs all cables through the stem & HS (FSA ACR).
I want to use Campy.

I have Campy on all my bikes and there's a noticeable increase in cable drag on the bikes with full housing runs from the shifters to the derailleurs (IE cross bike) versus standard, old school "open" routing (IE Look 585).

I'm concerned that the bends of ACR will add even more drag and make the shifting... not shift.

Anyone have first hand experience with mechanical shifting and ACR stems? Hopefully Campy specifically?

[Mikej]

I run cabled R9100 on a new Emonda SLR. While not through the stem, the cables and hoses tuck under it and enter into the frame through the headset. I ran full housing and it’s worked fine all year.

[Dude]

I'm in the same boat as MikeJ. New spec allez with hyrdo brakes and mech shifting under the stem and into the HS.

I haven't had any issues except when I wanted to put a longer stem on there - housing lengths were barely long enough.

That and I haven't torn it down yet, meaning I haven't had a need to deal with internal everything. I'm sure my opinion will be different once I swap parts around.

[Dr Luxurious]

This whole system is a ginormous PITA
If carbon wasn't so delicate I'd drill a couple of holes in the DT and run the cables that way.

I mean, if the housing is trying to blow out in the static product display model...

.

[Dave]

The picture shows me how the cable routing can vary between brands. If I needed two shift cables and a two hydraulic hoses, they'd all go into a fairly good sized opening in front of the steerer.

That said, I'd never try using mechanical shifting with an integrated bar/stem - too many bends. I had cable friction issues on my last Campy equipped bike with a standard bar/stem, but cables routed inside the frame.

It's wireless electronic for me. Only one hose goes through the frame to the rear brake caliper and it's very easy to pull in.

[fignon's barber]

I run Ekar internally through the stem and headtube (Deda Superbox) and it works brilliantly.

[slosh415]

Not ACR specifically but it looks very similar to the first generation Madone's integrated bar, stem, and spacers. I moved an Ultegra 6800 group from my previous bike to that Madone, and the shifting went from flawless to terrible.

[oldpotatoe]

Originally Posted by Dr Luxurious

This whole system is a ginormous PITA
If carbon wasn't so delicate I'd drill a couple of holes in the DT and run the cables that way.

I mean, if the housing is trying to blow out in the static product display model...

It's too bad frame makers, pushed REALLY hard by the marketeers(certainly not the designers) make a frame that boasts of YUGE PERFORMANCE GAINS type crappola like all internal. Like I asked some shimano dude at Interlake, pointing at some gizmo."What's that for?"

"It's for selling"

[Mikej]

I really love the hidden look, regardless of maintenance complexity. I have already had mine apart for length adjustments and once you can get a proper height chair you can balance the fork and it’s really pretty easy. The most difficult component of the assembly / disassembly is the front brake hose holding everything close, a quick connection somewhere would be gold.

[Dr Luxurious]

Originally Posted by fignon's barber

I run Ekar internally through the stem and headtube (Deda Superbox) and it works brilliantly.

Yikes! that's a really tight bend!

.

[rice rocket]

Originally Posted by oldpotatoe

It's too bad frame makers, pushed REALLY hard by the marketeers(certainly not the designers) make a frame that boasts of YUGE PERFORMANCE GAINS type crappola like all internal. Like I asked some shimano dude at Interlake, pointing at some gizmo."What's that for?"

"It's for selling"

I don't really care about the aero benefit, it just makes for a nicer finished product.

Imagine if your car had wires hanging between the switches and devices...

[dddd]

In cases where hidden shift cables perform poorly, I consider a few possibilities.

Possibly the inner wire got bent up during assembly (common when perhaps a stiff section of housing pops free of it's stop, or when a cable's entire length was first fed through a shifter and then "stuffed" into the cable port atop the shifter housing).

Perhaps again a stiff section of housing has partially popped out of one of it's stops at either end of the housing and is now not seated properly so creating a sharply-angled cable path.

Use of the wrong lubricant isn't rare to see.
Noting here that pre-lubricated cable housing from the big makers always uses a very light-viscosity lube having only what I believe to be a silicone base.

If the cable has ever been replaced without replacing all of the housings (typically under the tape and/or inside of the handlebar), possibly some dirty portion of the old cable has been pulled through the necessarily-clean inside of the existing cable housing, leaving the cable's path contaminated with abrasive grit. I thus always wipe the old cable thoroughly or better yet cut it cleanly off (if it will not be salvaged for some future use).

Sometimes a lever/clamp slips along the handlebar or gets pushed so far sideways that a cable housing end gets dislodged from it's proper seating within the shifter's cable port (resulting in a sharply-bent or obstructed cable path).

Shifting performance depends on free movement along a cable's entire path.
Any friction or viscous drag along the cable's path, particularly further from the shifter's index positioning, will amplify the cable's elasticity and thus increase the error between the shifters index positioning and the derailer's index positioning.

Some frames have tighter-radius bends at the cable guidepoints (such as the bottom bracket area, the chainstay cable port and the downtube entry), and such frames usually benefit from use of thinner 1.1mm cables versus 1.2mm cables, this allowing the cable's arc to better follow a straight-line tangent away from any relatively-short guide radius. Noting that Suntour's ancient compound-wound (commonly referred to as "braided") cables had a lot of lengthwise elasticity but still gave relatively crisp shifting because of their superior supple flex around the tight-radius bb cable guides of the day.

That's all I got. I do sort of hate dealing with shift cable housing in and around certain internal-routing handlebars, for what that's worth...

[carpediemracing]

My stem/bar set up means my cables make really, really hard bends. Also, for about 5-6 years, my main car required that my bars be turned all the way until it it the top tube for the bike to fit in the car.

This meant two things. My Campy housing blew out after a few weeks of traveling in the car (so really maybe 5-8 drives the housing blew out). I blew out a second set just as quickly.

The other is that there was a lot of friction in the system.

So I got Nokons. I run the liner all the way to the end, using the links where it's appropriate. There are some crazy bends in my cable routing, especially near my stem.

However... there is so little friction that twice I thought I forgot to install the inner gear wire when I put things together. There is literally no cable feel in the shifter.

I also have never had issuses with the housing blowing out, shifting problems, etc. I only replaced gear wire when I changed shifters or frames, so just a few times in the last 15 years on two bikes. I still use some of the same segments I got in about 2008 or so, although I've added another 3? sets. The first set of segments corroded something nasty, the later ones were much better. Still on my bike now.

I use White Lightning as wire lube. I use the narrower gear wire. Since I use Campy, I file the heads down (I think the ones I get are the shaved-down-sides QBP narrow wire, maybe 1.1mm?). Stock Campy cables don't work as well.