Brake cable sabotage ?

[jgreg]

Hello,

Here is my problem: my bike is bit more than one year old; I used it nearly on a daily basis for 6-8 month, mainly to go to work. I didn't do offroad or any thing too rough with it. As the winter was coming, I used it less and less regularly.
It's a decent quality bike (Montague) not a cheap Tesco or Asda one, and I took a reasonnable care of it. But still, my both brake cables "broke" and I find it suprising because It never happened to me on my previous bikes.

I noticed my rear brake cable was only holding by a few threads. All the other one had been cut/broken in a very neat way. It happen after the brake bolt itself, where there is no tension .But it could have been bad if the bolt was not completely tight and let the brake cable slide a bit, and go out of the bold completely. I was suspicious but wasn't sure of what was happening.

But when my front break cable also broke, this time while I was cycling, I became worried.
This time it broke in a more natural place, between the brake and the handle, where there is some tension. But it was the same kind of neat break where most of the threads were cleanly cut and only a few ones (probably the last ones resisting) didn't break at the same place.

My concerns are:
Did my brake cables break themselves or did someone cut them?
If someone cut my brake cables, was it some sociopath that randomly cut brake cables on unattended bikes or was it someone targetting me?

As there was some tension and hostilty at my work when it happened and as some of my colleagues are pretty irresponsible, it is a possibility. Especially since most of the time when my bike is unattended is when it is locked at the company bike shed. Otherwise I keep it in my flat when I am not using it.

I wrote to the manufacturer and showed him the pictures and he think that someone tampered with my bike,
so I would like to have other opinions.

For those who cycle a lot, how many times did your brake cable broke ? Did it happen on old bikes ? on brand new ones ?
Or did some of you cycling in Reading and Maidenhead experience the same problem?

I included the pictures of the front brake cable.

P1010972-small.jpg (224.14 KiB) Viewed 609 times

front brake2.JPG (128.53 KiB) Viewed 609 times

[Stephen Muir]

I've never had a brake cable break, but that's not to say it doesn't happen.

You could say it's bad luck to have two go at much the same time, but, on the other hand, if one is in bad condition, it's likely the other will be as well, because the bike as a whole is kept in the same weather conditions, etc, etc.

As for the sabotage idea, I think it's a very big jump from noting the cables broke at much the same time to suspecting your bike was sabotaged. If you really think that, shouldn't you have gone straight to the police, where they'd either take you seriously and examine your bike, or — and I suspect this is much more likely — treat you as an idiot and kick you out warning you not to waste valuable police time? If it was sabotage why did the saboteur make such a hash of it, cutting one of the cables beyond the clamp, where a break doesn't have any effect; also, as you point out, there's no need to actually cut, or partially cut, the cable: they could just release the clamp bolt so the cable will slip through when you apply the brake, no suspicious cut marks at all. Rejoice, then, that the person who intends you ill is so incompetent! It doesn't say much for your work colleagues if you think some of them would even consider doing such a thing, no matter how bad the atmosphere.

All this, to me, is beside the point. Whether someone had it in for you or not is immaterial because you're never going to be able to prove it. The only thing that matters is that your brake cables broke, for whatever reason. Therefore, it makes sense to test your brakes before you ride off: give your cables a quick visual inspection, and pull hard on the brake levers while pushing the bike forwards. Ideally, you want to find out your brakes don't work before you're riding along, not when your life depends on them...

[jgreg]

Thanks for your reply.

Well... I agree to the fact it is important to check my brakes before using my bike. When my front brake cable broke I had nearly reached my destination and the brake was behaving well(even if there was only 2-3 threads holding...). now I will pull harder to test my brakes.

But for me it is quite important to know if I just had bad luck or if I have dangerous colleagues (or if some stupid kids tampered with my bike when I was shopping in town). I hope it was just bad luck.

I didn't go to the police to avoid wasting their time but I may write them. Not that I expect them to run to run DNA tests and check fingerprints
- I asked the bike shop where I bought the new cable how often brake cables were breaking, it told me it was unlikley to happen on recent bikes like mine which are about one year old (especially since mine is in my flat during the night and not outside in the garden).
- I asked some of my friends if it ever happenend to them and it hadn't.
- I wrote to the manufacturer of my bike and he thinks that someone tampered with my bike.
- Then I went to this forum to ask the opinions of other cyclists.

I will be really relieved if I got several people replying that such things happened to them, and If a "naturally" broken cable looks like the picture I sent.

So I am waiting for feedback from people who either cycled a lot and never had this problem or for people who already had this problem.

[davidroberts]

Many years ago I had several cable failures but these were when the cable pulled out of the nipple. (But this was a time when playing in traffic with Weinman sidepulls literally needed white knuckles...)

Have you checked for sharp edges? The break looks too close to the clamp to have been done with a tool.

[phildyson]

I would venture to suggest that there is no chance that the cable would break on the non-tension side of the clamp without intentional manual intervention. I have had gear cables break in my Ergo levers, but never have I seen a brake cable break.