MTB Addiction: It's the small things...

So, the breaking news is the bike was finished about a month ago and rides brilliantly...but more to come later!

What I wanted to talk about is something I'm very proud of, but no one would ever notice unless prompted! The KS Lev dropper seat post has been fantastic after an initial hiccup where I snapped the internal actuating cable - oops. The Lev comes with a nice outer cable which I assume is about 4mm in diameter. Now, being a perfectionist, I couldn't very well have different colour outers for gears, brakes and seat post, so the whole bike uses Jagwire Carbon Silver outers which (annoyingly) are 4.5mm in diameter. Admittedly, 0.5mm difference doesn't sound like a lot, but the outer has a special plastic cable end on it which, in addition to it's normal job, also holds the KS Lev aluminium cap in, so you don't lose it whilst chattering down the trail. The problem, which should be evident by now, is that the Jagwire outer doesn't fit in the cable end.

My first solution was to simple drill out cable end, which would have worked nicely had I not been hamfisted and drilled right through it - so I decided to make a new one...out of metal! Below is the process:

The Jagwire Carbon Silver kits come with a number of aluminium cable ends which complement the outers perfectly. I took one of those and flattened off a thin strip along its length so I had a good gluing surface.

Next, I took some old SPD cleats and used the countersunk bolt plate (the small one on the outside, not the metal plate under your foot) and used a Dremel style rotary tool to grind and sand a suitable lug.

Araldite Precision was the glue of choice (actually, the only suitable glue I had) and after a fiddle few minutes positioning the pieces, I left it to dry over night.

I checked it out this morning and gave the whole thing a once over with a sander to remove any glue, and it was done...