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Which cable housing? 4mm or 5mm?

Shibby

Monkey
Sep 9, 2001
178
0
cambridge, ma
5mm housing for mountain bike cables, 4mm for road. Generally. This isn't to say that you couldn't run road cables in mtn housing, but you generally want to use the cable and housing combos recommended by the manufacturer.

Yah.
 

oldfart

Turbo Monkey
Jul 5, 2001
1,206
24
North Van
There's no real difference. SRAM shift cables are smaller in diameter. But housing is all the same inside as far as I know. Shimano housing is all the 4mm kind road and muntain. They use nice plastic sealed ferules so if you want to keep those you need the small housing. There is a difference between shift and brake housing though. Shift housing is made with parrallel wire strands whereas brake is wound flat strands. Or strand. DO NOT USE shift housing for brakes. It will blow up the first time you pull hard. Then you;ll crash hard.
 

Brian HCM#1

MMMMMMMMM BEER!!!!!!!!!!
Sep 7, 2001
32,119
378
Bay Area, California
Originally posted by oldfart
There's no real difference. SRAM shift cables are smaller in diameter. But housing is all the same inside as far as I know. Shimano housing is all the 4mm kind road and muntain. They use nice plastic sealed ferules so if you want to keep those you need the small housing. There is a difference between shift and brake housing though. Shift housing is made with parrallel wire strands whereas brake is wound flat strands. Or strand. DO NOT USE shift housing for brakes. It will blow up the first time you pull hard. Then you;ll crash hard.
Actually Shimano does make 5mm