Poll: Have you ever had a cable break while riding?

[JJJake]

I went through a few throttle cables on my '70 Suzuki TC90 before coming up with a solution. The throttle sleeve didn't hit the "bump-stop", so it could turn infinitely. This quickly pulled the cable ends off. The last time that it broke was when I brought it to my friend's property for a day of riding. It broke darned near immediately. We were limited in materials to "fix" it but ended up using split-shot fishing weights and nut and a washer. You held the casing in your palm and pulled the washer with thumb and pointer finger. It took some trial and error, but it worked all day long. We called it a suicide throttle. I'm glad to have it fixed, but now I know a quick/effective temporary fix for next time.

[FIREMEDIC]

I had a KZ1000 which had a clutch cable which bent because I had a pair of low short handlebars on it. I used to have to replace the cable every couple of months, you could feel the individual strands beginning to break 1-by-1 as the pull got easier & easier. That was like a warning, "time to replace me!" I always bought quality aftermarket cables, but they broke anyway.

On my CL77 bought in 1971 I used the old trick of zip-tying a new cable next to the old cable, already routed, and w/the ends covered w/electrical tape, so it was fairly easy to replace one if need-be.

[jleewebb]

Never broke a cable, but I did break my clutch lever back in October, about 80 miles from home pulling into a friend's driveway.
Embarrasing story, let's just say i re-learned something I already knew: don't use the front brake with the front wheel turned, even a little, especially in a soft caliche dust driveway.

Thought about Spargett's trick of turning brake lever over and using that, but then I'd have had to ride home with no front brake. Scrounged in Charlie's junk/stuff and came up with a piece of copper pipe the right size and fixed it enough to get me home.