Has anyone fitted the Sram Hydro brifters themselves?

I have a set of (used) Rival 22 brifters I’m trying to set up on a new bike.

The brakes wen on and bled fine.

The inner gear cables went in fine.

But the outer exits the shifter at a crazy angle, different to cable brake brifters:

when I then push the outer close to the bar for taping, it bends the outer at a crazy tight angle:

This causes so much drag on the cable that shifting is impaired to the point that down shifts don’t work!

Am I doing something wrong? Any pointers gratefully received.

I’m using Jagwire cables.

there was a thread about exactly this a few months ago. I don’t recall details but a search will find it

I think my force shifters have two entry/ exit points for the shifter cable. I can’t remember having this issue when I did mine.
I can only suggest you either come out at a shallow angle ( you probably thought of that already ) or trim down the ferule a bit. That may help.

Hi thanks for the replies.

pn and on – were yours hydraulic levers? The Rival hydraulic levers I have don’t have the two options, and the only option you have is at a crazy angle as pictured!!!

jamiep – If found this post by pdw:

In general, they’re not necessary, but I had a battle with some SRAM hydraulic shifters that have the cable exit at a stupid angle, and if you tried to route it with normal gear outers you’d get a lot of friction due to the tight bends. I eventually solved it by using a short section of brake outer to get it around the bends.

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/direct-me-to-a-place-to-buy-the-bendy-metal-things-that-go-under-bar-tape

Surely there is an “official” solution by Sram as surely they don’t do that on new bikes…

I have some V brake noodles, that might work but just seems like a bodge to me.

Resurrecting a very old thread with a link to an even older one. Here’s my original thread on this same problem:

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/tight-bends-causing-problems-with-cables-under-tape-on-road-bars

Even with the short section of brake outer hack, I’ve always found the shifting on these heavy and clumsy, so I’ve just taken another bash at recabling.

This time I’ve used gear cable for the full length, but as suggested above, shortened the ferrule so the cable can start to bend sooner, not tried to get the cable it too close to the bar, and run it to the back of the bars to further ease the curve.

This does make the grip quite fat at the bend, but so far it seems to be OK. What I noticed is that even without the routing issues, the shifter itself causes a lot of drag in the lower gears. With the rear mech disconnected, and pulling on the cable by hand, the force needed to pull the cable through when you upshift dramatically increases in lower gears (bigger sprockets). This translates into very heavy shifting: shifting between small sprockets is nice and light, but it gets progressively heavier as you shift onto the bigger ones.

Is this normal with these shifters? Any tips for improving it?

I can’t believe we re the only ones that experienced this.

I used a flexible v brake noodle in the end.

I was concerned about this when i got mine having read your post not long before, but had no issues once they were installed.

I used SRAM cables as the came with the levers, i normally use jagwire but cant recall if there was any difference. Might be worth a look.

The inner cable especially need to be 1.1mm not the standard 1.2mm, so that may be exacerbating the issue if youve got that wrong? Cant say i have any drag in the shifter itself though, drops to 1st no bother.
EDIT: Jagwire is 1.2mm so that is probably causing some of you issues.

I need to retape the bars soon so ill try to remember to take a pic when i do it.

So far my new routing cutting the corner a bit and routing to the back of the bars is working well, and I actually find that the wider section around the bend is quite comfortable on my palm. That said, I’ve not shown it any mud yet. Previously I’ve be able to get it working nicely on the stand, but have it go to pot on the first sign of mud.

I’ve also just switched from the Force 22 rear mech to a Rival 1, and I think that may have improved things further.

I’ve tried using 1.1mm inners, but not found it to make any noticeable difference.

Next time you’re re-cabling, disconnect the inner and gently pull on it as you shift up and down. On mine it takes noticeably more force to pull the cable through as you shift up when you’re in the lower gear positions (bigger sprockets), and as far as I can tell, that’s all coming from the shifters.