New style Shimano 105 road front mech - heavy shifting

I'd re-cable and stop at the cable guide. Shouldn't be hard to press

I had a 2021 Giant Contend and it suffered from this. I couldn't get it any lighter, nor could the LBS, they felt it was design/routing. I sold the bike not long after getting it (not just because of the shifting !) and the new one is Ultegra with no such issues.

Is it R7000 or R5800? Both are pretty sensitive to being set up correctly, so I'd recable including the guide and follow the Shimano instructions carefully. For R5800 you need a special tool to do it properly but its only a couple of quid on eBay (TL-FD68).

TBH I always thought the 5800 FD was a bit pony even when set up right so maybe using the Ultegra one isn't a bad option!

Hmm, interesting! The routing on this bike (Specialized Allez Elite) couldn't really be any better, very gradual entry into downtube then nice and straight to the BB.

The only turn is at handlebars (unavoidable and by design) and at the BB (ditto).

I guess new cables it is, and will leave enough slack for the older style Ultegra if I decide to give it a go.

Edit: R7000. Had never seen that tool before! I'd swear Shimano were trying to convince us all to go 1x or Di2 just by overcomplicating the humble front mech 🙄

Is this any help?

Shimano Front Derailleur Dealer’s Manual

I will undoubtedly refer to it when installing new cable as I'm still not confident with the new adjustments 😂

But otherwise no particular reference to heavy or stuff shifting, the derailleur appears to be set up correctly in that there's no rattling at extremes etc. and it will make the shift, but it's just extra heavy!

Is this any help?

Shimano Front Derailleur Dealer’s Manual

Very useful!

Find this type a PITA to set up properly.....

FWIW when I set up the R7000 front mech on my Amazon it was silky smooth and the equal of the R8000 on my Cube. Since then it has gradually stiffened up, though it doesn't sound as bad as yours (or you have a ladies finger m'lud). I have replaced the inner once as I noticed that the exposed portion (along the downtube) had some sort of plastic coating that seemed to be peeling off and sticking to the cable in places. It's possible that this coating has also contaminated the run of outer under the bar tape and I've only put off replacing this as I don't reckon I'll get the bar tape back on and I'm too stingy to buy more 😃

I find the cables have a habit of fraying at the lever end which is, obviously, harder to spot

The shop mentioned that they had routed the cable all the way up to the mech and bypassed the little plastic guide at the BB, but I’m wondering if the extra cable could somehow be making the shifting heavier?

How did they do that? Cut through the guide, took it off, another bodge? I'd be cabling it properly and seeing how it works, shimano are no where near as sensitive to cable type as SRAM and any decent stainless 1.1mm cable will do, SP41 is however the way forwards for all gear outer IMHO.

How did they do that? Cut through the guide, took it off, another bodge?

No, the Specialized cable routing makes it very easy, outer cable runs all the way through the downtube and terminates at plastic BB guide, bare cable rest of way.

OR just continue outer past BB guide, turn up and terminate at the stop on the mech.

I find the cables have a habit of fraying at the lever end which is, obviously, harder to spot

Yeah, would have hoped shop had noticed this when they recabled! Unless there is any residual contamination within lever I don't think it's the polymer coating Scotroutes mentioned, cables and outers are all new, although I was suspicious of the quality.

Jagwire cables are generally as good (the stainless ones) as Shimano, the only caveat is that the Jagwire is 1.1mm diameter and the Shimano 1.2mm. This doesn’t sound a lot but in my experience the Shimano shifted better and lasted longer, especially on the road front mechs.
@scotroutes - the problem you appear to have is the Teflon, or similar, wearing off the inner. I stopped fitting that flavour of inner as eventually all the peelings clogged the shifter. It can sometimes be moved with compressed air. Good luck both!

@wheelsonfire1 - I hadn't considered compressed air as an option for decontaminating the outers. I'll look into that. Cheers!

And.. although I said Jagwire are generally as good, the top of the range are almost as good as Shimano - the slick lube outers are lined and lubed like Shimano top of the range(ish) SP41. The cheaper ones (I wouldn’t use) are not so good. The price difference can be minimal, the performance gap huge.

Pretty easy to check if it's the cable - undo it then hold it whilst shifting. You'll feel if there's a lot of drag in the routing.

My money is on routing into the mech cable clamp. I got a 6800 mech wrong when re-cabling a few years ago which made it feel unbelievably heavy. Does the new 105 mech give options for routing to the clamp?

If there is a loop of outer cable forming a U bend under the bottom bracket i would imagine it will now be full of a lovely mix or rainwater, road sludge, shredded teflon and oil.

The little plastic guide serves several purposes. That's one of them.

Does the new 105 mech give options for routing to the clamp

Not really, the washer is pretty much shaped to the cable route.

Will check what quality Jagwire it was, it came off a reel as opposed to from a packet, don't know if it's slicklube or not.

These mechs do need to be set up in a specific way compared to older style Shimano.
When in the smaller chainring make sure the stop screw is correctly adjusted and there is adequate cable tension... also new cables\housings will settle in after a few rides and it will be a lot more noticeable on the newer style mechs.

I have found with these mechs that if it isn't far enough into it's pivot\stroke the mechs leverage will be fighting against you until it gets far enough into it's stroke. If it goes from being initially hard work to suddenly moving ok it's probably one of the above. I have also found on some bikes the mech doesn't sit far enough away from the chainset to allow you to get it far enough into its stroke via the stop screw or cable tension, especially Band-on style mech rather than Braze on.... or width ways if the BB isn't 100% central to the seat tube if the factory has cocked up the frame alignment 🙈

That's interesting Fibre, will check that. There definitely feels like there's a bit of dead travel at the start of the lever stroke, the mech doesn't move but there's still some resistance. The low stop is one screw I haven't really tinkered with.

About the trickiest bike part to set up correctly - done lots and even new bikes fresh from the factory we’ren’t set-up correctly. The trick is to take all the tension out the cable and getting the trim function to work. A cable puller tool makes life easier. The teflon coated Shimano cables are also a pain, going all ‘furry’ clogging up cables and shifters

Optislick for the win!

Double checked the Jagwire outer that I took off and it was the cheap stuff, felt immediately better on the stand once I'd replaced it.

Annoyingly had bought a big bundle of the Jagwire stuff from the shop just to have as spare, won't be using that now 🙄

It’s not the same setup as yours, but I had heavy shifting on my 1x11 Deore rear mech after I changed the cable inner.

After being told that it would require the ****ing extortionate Optislick inner to feel nice and work properly, I replaced the brand new inner with said ****ing extortionate Optislick inner.

It now works properly and feels nice again.

🙄

I had very heavy shifting on a bike I built.

I had put the spacers on the wrong side of the crank so the chainline was all out meaning the FD was over extended.

Shifted fine but very heavy at the lever.