- Now, some bikes really do let it all hang out
when it comes to cables and controls upfront,
so today we're going to have a look
how to neaten your cockpit on your e-bike.
(electronic sounds)
Now, many bikes do have a nest
of overly long cables upfront on the bike,
and that is because,
when a manufacturer orders their cables,
they do it for sizes from small to extra large,
so a bike that is small sized,
you're probably going to get cables which are
going to hang out at the front.
But, we're not going to focus on that today,
that's for a separate video, how to trim down your cables,
today, we're simply going to focus on your controls
and how to neaten those up.
(rock-style music)
Now, many bikes in the market come with separate clamps
for both the brake lever, and the shifter lever.
However, if you're lucky enough to run
a Shimano or Sram system on your bike,
you can actually get custom mounts,
which mean you can put the brake and the shifter
in one location on each side of your handlebar.
Now Shimano uses this system called I-SPEC,
which connects the shifter to the brake.
However, Sram, like we've got on the bike here,
uses Matchmaker.
Now, you can buy the Matchmaker clamp after-market,
but the greatest thing about Matchmaker
is it means you can adjust all the angles,
you can adjust the shifter in relation to the brake,
and crucially you can adjust in-board or out-board,
where your shift lever is.
Now, sometimes I get cuts on my knuckles,
because the shifter is simply too close to my knuckles,
but with Matchmaker,
you can actually shift that shifter in-board,
which is a far more comfortable position on your cockpit.
Now the next question you're going to ask is,
what if you've got a Shimano brake and a Sram shifter?
Well, there's an adapter on the [Inaudible]
called Trickster, which allows you to do just that.
But before we go into some details onto
how to do things up here with, say the Shimano system,
I think the first thing to bear in mind is,
how exactly do you hold onto your brakes
and what's the shape of your body,
so that's what we need to bear in mind
before we get you started adjusting your cockpit area.
So today we're looking at my canyon spectral as an example
how to neaten your cockpit,
but also some idea on how you use your controls
when you're on the trail.
And I think this is probably a good example
for any Shimano E8000 system-owners.
Now, before I start, I'd just like to say,
when I'm riding down through terrain,
which is sort of undulating,
I'm constantly going through the seat dropper,
up and down on the seat dropper,
and also changing through the gears.
It's very rare that I switch through the mode button.
So, up and down through the gears,
and up and down on the seat post.
So those are my two main controls,
which I want to make sure are in the correct position.
(rock-style music)
Now a little bit of a tip here
for people running the Shimano E8000 system,
which uses a DI2-style shifter to go from
eco-trail and boost-mode.
I really like to use a shifter-style lever
for adjusting my dropper post,
and, as you can see, if you try to mount this
with a DI2 shifter,
then it leads to pretty heavy traffic in that area.
So, what do you do about it?
I think there's a couple of ways to go about this.
As you can see, on this bike,
we haven't got a shifter-style lever for my dropper post,
but one, which is mounted on the top there,
and then you can go.
That means that you can access your dropper post
and your DI2 shifter on the hoof pretty easily.
I know some of you might actually
want to put your dropper on the right-hand side,
but I highly recommend that you try to get
the dropper left-hand side,
shifters on the right-hand side,
just so when you're moving,
when you're climbing on your e-bike,
they're really easy to access.
Now, the second way to tackle the issue of shifting upfront
is to use a different shifter to the DI2.
I think we've all got our preferences
when it comes to shifting,
and I really, really rate this Shimano E6000 shifter.
As you can see, there's an up button and a down button.
Now, Shimano also do an E7000 shifter,
which is two black buttons,
but I think this is pretty hard to fault,
because when you mount this together
with a shifter-style seat-dropper adjuster,
it's absolutely so easy to use when you're on the trail.
Now, I was absolutely terrified
when this E6000 unit arrived in the post,
simply because it's got a lead to it,
and I was thinking,
how on earth do I attach that?
And it's actually really, really simple.
All you do is,
take your grip off, take your seat-dropper,
and brake lever off,
then slide the DI2 shifter off,
after you've unplugged it from the head unit,
simple as that, there's the little end there.
All we're doing is replacing that end for that end.
Now, we've actually swapped out to a bike
that we sorted the cockpit out on earlier,
and as you can see, we've got the E6000,
which is tucked up neatly to the grip,
then we've got the brake lever,
and then we've got the Crankbrothers drop-out.
Now, the coolest thing about the E6000
is it's super low-profile.
So if you do come off,
then it's not going to take any knocks.
Here we've got the DI2 bands,
which keeps the electric cable in place,
now you need to be really careful with that [Inaudible]
cable, because it can sometimes come out,
if you get in a bit of a crash,
and it might just pop out of the head unit there,
so keep an eye on that one, I think.
These DI2 bands, absolutely bang on to keep that in place.
(rock-style music)
Right, so you've got your controls sorted out
on your handlebar and your cockpit area,
we'll move on now to the cables on your bike.
Let's have a look at five different ways
of neatening the cables on your cockpit of your bike.
As you can see, this bike has had some electrical tape
to join the rear brake to the seat-dropper,
plus the head unit lead.
Now the next system of connecting your cables
are these little s-clips,
there you go, super neat,
and I guess they're pretty flexible,
so that means when the bike is moving,
they move with the cables,
so that easy to fit,
we'll clip it on there,
clip it on there,
boom, look at that,
absolutely easy.
And as I say, when the bike moves,
that moves with it,
so it's pretty dynamic.
(rock-style music)
Now the third technique is something that mimics the s-clip,
and all you do is get a farrell,
now a farrell is the plastic cover,
which goes into your seat-dropper
or your gear-shifter.
So you get one of them,
get snips and cut the blanked-off end,
get one of your zip-ties,
so you thread the zip-tie through,
coat it around the outside of the cable,
push it back through there,
then that goes over the top,
that goes underneath.
So we're doing this in order to keep the cables separate,
so there you go, that's the alternative method.
So as I say, that keeps the cables separate,
then you just trim off the end there.
Boom.
Now the fourth method is these cable cleaners,
you can probably find them around the office,
some bike brands actually have them
on their bike as standard.
Dead easy to fit,
you simply just wind it on there,
and boom, goes on so easily,
highly recommended.
Look at that.
And then you can cut that to suit
the length of your cables.
That is so easy,
look how neat that is.
(rock-style music)
Next up is the trusty old zip-tie.
Always I have zip-ties in my car or van,
and most of the time I cannot find them,
but again, there you go, zip-tie method,
super simple, and make sure that when you do this,
you use small ones rather than big ones,
because that really is overkill.
Get on there, get the old snippers,
cut them off, boom.
So there you go,
some basic tips how to neaten up your cockpit on your bike,
Shimano E8000 style.
A few different ways there to connect your cables,
I particularly like the insulating tape method,
because I think it's just so stealth.
If you need to see some more videos on workshop tips,
check out the one that Chris has done,
how to silence your e-bike.
Let us know your thoughts on this video,
and don't forget,
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