[mickmate]

Yep you're missing something. The cable has a spiral to it. If you hold a spiral at one end and twist it one way it tries to open or unravel. If you reverse the twist it tries to get smaller but in the case of a speedo cable it just bottoms on itself and doesn't get any smaller. The manufacturers recommend using the reverser at the speedo end but doing what you did reverses the cable rotation direction.