On 2018-04-28 18:34, John B. wrote:
On Sat, 28 Apr 2018 07:18:09 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2018-04-27 18:35, jbeattie wrote:
On Friday, April 27, 2018 at 4:18:58 PM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 2018-04-27 15:11, jbeattie wrote:
On Friday, April 27, 2018 at 2:10:07 PM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 2018-04-27 10:57, jbeattie wrote:

[...]



Decades of racing and riding on single and dual pivot rim brakes
in the rain and never once pussyfooted except to avoid traction
loss. I've never crashed in the rain because of brake failure
(and I've crashed many times in the rain), although I had one
close-call involving some bad cantis on STI levers, but then
again, I had an even scarier incident with mis-adjusted cable
discs. My crashes were all due to traction loss.


One of my really nasty crashes happened when the front brake cable
snapped. It was almost new. That just does not happen with
hydraulic disc brakes. I had the choice of wiping out with major
road rash or chancing it into the vegetation. In either case I'd
have been toast if there had been oncoming traffic.

A catastrophic failure can happen in any system. Breaking a new
cable is a catastrophic failure. It shouldn't happen (it's never
happened to me in maybe 300K miles of riding).


I had it happen half a dozen times. My sister had it happen at least
twice. Two of those incidences caused accidents, a 3rd almost did
(blowing through a non 4-way downhill stop sign but nobody came). These
were all good quality cables bought at reputable bike shops, not
department store merchandise.


A half a dozen times? And your sister, at least twice?

It seems to me that you need to find a four leaf clover, or carry a St
Christopher medal on your bike to protect you. Or maybe a verse from
the Koran? Something anyway, as you obviously are suffering from
incredible bad luck.

In contrast to your experiences, I rode my first bicycle in about 1943
and have ridden bicycles and motorcycles and airplanes, all of which
depended on cables to control them, and have never experienced a
broken cable.


For years and years we each logged 3000-6000 miles per year. Some stuff
on bikes fails a lot, other stuff doesn't. IME brake cables are among
the less reliable parts but not nearly as unreliable as bottom bracket
bearings.


With all your cable problems I'd think that a "dead weight" cable
tester would be to your advantage. Simple to build and simple to
operate it would ensure that your cables met the necessary strength
requirements.


It won't help. At least mine didn't fail during emergency hard-pul
situations. I have learned early on not to lock up my brakes, whether on
bikes or in cars, unless it is advantageous and even then you don't need
much force. They just ... failed, out of the blue. For example, when I
cam home from school I approached the last traffic light 1/2mi from our
house. It was red, so I applied front and read brake. Front cable
snapped and the bumper of a BMW helped me to come to a stop. The driver
got out but when he saw the cable jacket flopping around in the air he
said "Oh, yes, that happens", got back in and drove off. I guess he was
a cyclist and it seemed like he also had that happen.

[...]

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/