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Cable Guide
A cable guide is a fitting or frame feature which guides a piece of bare inner cable around a corner. Most multi-speed bicycles have cable guides to get the derailer cables past the bottom bracket.
Older derailer bikes used either brazed-on or clamp-on guides just above the bottom bracket, but newer bicycles have a guide under the bottom bracket.
The below-the-bottom-bracket option is cheaper, and, for some bicycles with very small chainweels, it eliminates interference betwixt the rear derailer cable and the bottom of the front derailer cage. It also makes cleaning the frame slightly easie.
The above-the-bottom-bracket system is superior in that the cable is shorter and the loop of housing at the rear derailer is not as tight, since the cable stop is atop the chainstay, rather than beneath it.
Poor lubrication of bottom-bracket cable guides is a common cause of autoshifting. Some bicycles use a cable guide on one side of the seat cluster for a rear cantilever-brake cable, rather than to use a short length of housing between two housing stops.
