Sometimes it’s the smallest things that makes things better.

Certain things like badly indexing gears are a particular MTBing hate of mine and when the winter grit and mud started playing havoc with the gears on my Trek Fuel EX 8 I looked around for remedies.

The obvious choices are sealed cables but these are expensive and I’ve had variable performance with them. Another alternative has been around for ages but are one of those little widgets that I’d forgotten about until I came across them recently browsing the net.

Middleburn cable oilers are a great little invention. Simply you cut your outer, make sure the ends are clean, slide on half the outer, then the oiler, then the other half. The outers push sungly into the oiler and then you thread the cable.

To use the oiler, just roll off the O-ring and insert the WD40 tube into the hole in the oiler, then spray. The WD40 shoots up and down your cables and hey-presto they are perfectly lubed.

My winter post ride routine is now to give the bike a clean, spray the chain with WD40 ready for a lub later and a quick blast of WD40 in the oilers. It’s amazing how much muck comes out after a single ride, even the sealed cables like those on Debbie’s Orange 5.

After some of the worst weather we’ve seen for ages the gears on my bikes have all been working beautifully. I haven’t had to resort to expensive sealed cables. All for £5.99 for a pack of 3. The only issue is that you have to get you WD40 in bulk.