First World Problem.

Recently bought bluearsedfly junior no 2 a new bike for her upcoming birthday. Looking at it the gear cable will take all of 5 minutes to rub through the lower cup/fork:

Is there anything I can use to protect the cup/fork? I usually helitape everything but obviously that wouldn’t work here. Also thought about shortening the cable/outer but it will leave it a bit short for when the bars go round. It’s going to be in the family for a few years so wouldn’t mind keeping it looking right.

Any ideas?

you could try using one of those V brake elbow at the lever exit to change cable routing ?

Shorten the outer cable by an inch of two and then helitape the head tube where it will contact.

Or route it into the cable guide from the opposite side you have crossed cables under the down tube there. This might stiffen up gear cable performance though.

Just pop one of those little rubber sleeves on it

these ones

Cable tie around bottom of head tube, smaller tie fed through first then round cable. Acts like a small guide, stops rubbing. Easy.

Helitape the very top of the downtube just before it meets the headtube, and ziptie to the top of the downtube

Swap the cables over in the guides at the top of the down tube so that the inner cables cross under the down tube. Then, the outer cable will go round the head tube from the opposite sides and shouldn’t touch at all. Don’t understand why some bike manufacturers place cable guides for bikes to be set up like above.

Thanks all, may just go with the rubber sleeve as iainc suggested.

It’s a grip shift setup, I’m not sure if I’d get away with shortening the cable as if the bars were to go round it would be too short. Unfortunately there’s only one set of guides on the downtube so I think crossing the cable around the front of the headtube might make the angle at the guide too tight.

I use the same technique as kennyboy. Nice and neat. Takes seconds to apply.