My rear shifter cable just snapped yesterday. It broke down without any real warnings that I can recall. It neatly broke right at the head, that remained inside the shifter (a Shimano one).
If I recall correctly, it already broke last year but as I don't do much distance I wonder if this is normal. I had the cable changed at a local shop, and I must say I don't know which cable they put in, but it seemed quite cheap.
I isolated a few possible causes:
- I shift too often/too many gears at once. As I ride the bike in a city I tend to quickly shift down when approaching a red light, and back up when it turns green. Should I instead remain in an upper gear and use more strength to get going ? Or maybe just shift the front gear once ?
- I don't really put any maintenance effort in the shifter, should I maybe grease it from time to time? Especially since the bike is parked under a shed, but not in a closed garage.
- Maybe the shifter itself is damaged, I bought this bike from second hand, it has visibly suffered a few falls, but the external damage is minimal.
Or is this a perfectly normal occurrence ?