Greetings VBR-168 community,
today my question to you folks is about the routing of the front derailleur cable. Having successfuly threaded the four cables of my fully mechanical setup through the integrated cockpit i proceeded to route the cables through the frame (i started the other way around, frame first then handlebar... well that didn't work!). I have now routed all four cables to their locations, RD is in place, RB is in place, FB is in place. When it comes to the FD I have routed the outter cable bellow the bottom bracket shell (Token Ninja Thread together), as others here have done, so that it can make the bend upwards towards exiting the frame. As the cable outer makes its way to the metal exit grommet provided I found that the way the piece was manufactured makes it impossible for the end of the cable outer to sit within it. Dont ask for a pic because is nearly impossible to see the area in question without an endoscope.
I ended up modifying the piece with a dremmel by opening the aperture of the grommet piece facing the inside of the frame so that the end of the outer cable has a better chance at sitting with in it. Still not perfect fit. However, the cable inner does slides on through the grommet as intended.
I get to my question, How critical for shfting performance on the FD is it to have full contact on the cable outer into the grommet from inside the frame? In other setups that use just the inner cable, or in external cable routing setups (without the outter cable) the cable is doing all the tension work. Seems to me that under this scenario the cable outer is not carrying much load, if any, and what is more important is to have proper tension on the inner cable. Does that make sense? Some pics for reference are below