Bike Cable and Housing Tools Review

For those of you who like to work on your bikes, there may come a time when you have to use some special tool or another. Bikes have all kinds of special bike tools that make your job or the mechanic’s a lot easier, for example the Problem Solvers backstop. If you ever install bike brake cables, or bike shifters and their housing, then you may want to invest in some proper tools to make sure the job gets done correctly.

What It’s For

In Bike Repair and Maintenance there are tools needed to cut and crimp the end connections on your brake cable system and your gear shifting system, which are the two main cable systems on your bike. These may be conventional tools or specialized tools designed for cutting bike cables and housings. Park Tool makes some of the best cable and housing tools.

The most common conventional tool used to cut spiral housing is the diagonal cutter. Sometimes when you make the cut, it will be nice and clean and perfectly rounded. Other times, the last spiral may get crushed, which partially blocks the inner core, where the cable slides through. If this happens, just make a second cut. This usually clears it right up. Even with a clean cut on the housing, the end may still not be square. You may use a grinder wheel or a small file to flatten out the end and make sure it is nice and clean inside where the bike cable will sit. There is also a plastic liner inside the housing. This plastic liner will get crushed as well, when you make your cut on the housing . Insert a scratch awl into the hole and simply twist it around to open up the inside diameter again. If you used the grinder to flatten out the end of the cable, then use the scratch awl right away because the heat from the grinder will partially melt the plastic liner. It’s easier to do this before the plastic liner cools down too much.

Bike shop mechanics generally use a specialized tool made for cutting spiral cables and those that are not lined with reinforcement spirals as well. Trying to cut a cable housing with no spiral wall, is hard to do with conventional diagonal cutters, because they tend to automatically crush the housing. Using a Pedro's bike tool or Klein tool can help with this process.This special tool also has a function to allow you to crimp down on your cable ends or ferrules.

Major Manufacturers

Park Tool, Klein, Morse, CN-10.

Pricing

Prices for diagonal cutters start out at about $12.99 and the specialized housing/cable cutter tool starts at about $59.99.