Brake cables: Another "is it worth it" thread.



lectraplayer

Member
May 11, 2014
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I have seen these ultra-plastic hyper perfrormance brake cables in various forms. How do they compare to the ol' reliable steel cable?
 
I assume you're talking about PowerCordz and suchlike. They're an unimportant amount lighter. They are more difficult to clamp. They are more sensitive to chafing. The ones I used actually were a bit stiffer, but it's a feel thing rather than a function thing.
 
Originally Posted by lectraplayer

That's what I was thinking...

Who are they for? Racers?
Suckers.

I like Dura Ace 9000 cables, they do make the componentry feel smoother, these cables made my 105 brake levers feel like Ultegra and a friend of mine swore he was using Dura Ace levers when he rode my bike, not sure if I would go that far but I will go as far to say that they feel a lot like Ultegra.
 
Originally Posted by lectraplayer

That's what I was thinking...

Who are they for? Racers?
The same people who go for ceramic bearings I suppose.

To me, they were basically same, same, but different.
Once in place they did the job just as well, while being a tiny bit lighter.
Harder to clamp, but easier to cut.
More sensitive to chafing, but doesn't fray at the end.
Pick your poison.

If I didn't have better and less expensive things to do, I would have liked to equip a bike with Nokon-style outers and PowerCordz cables. That combo would have had a theoretical advantage in stiffness - less compression/extension, which might have done nice things to the performance of the braking and shifting.
 
Like most recent cycling advances, they are an attempt to extract more money from people with perfectly good bicycles.
 
Campy cable sets...all 4 inner and outer w/hardware...cost $45-$60. So the $60-$70 price isn't unreasonable IMO for the weight savings and claimed performance gains.

The manufacturer's recommended service life of 3 years offers no increase over steel though. The increased installation complexity and care will probably reap Darwin a few new candidates.

I will be interested to see if the polymer shift cables hold up any better at the ratchet drum to the constant flexing and bending and friction than steel cables.
 
There are people that actually believe the gunman was on the grassy knoll, the moon landing was filmed in a studio sound stage in California and Simple Green dissolves a bicycle chain. There was one lunatic that actually believed you could ride a Campagnolo UltraTorque Hirth joint crankset with a 1 MM 'air gap' separating the crank spindle halves.

10 pages of retarded alf: http://www.cyclingforums.com/threads/the-infamous-bb86-ultra-torque-click.446798/

Campy cable sets...all 4 inner and outer w/hardware...cost $45-$60. So the $60-$70 price isn't unreasonable IMO for the weight savings and claimed performance gains.

The manufacturer's recommended service life of 3 years offers no increase over steel though. The increased installation complexity and care will probably reap Darwin a few new candidates.

I will be interested to see if the polymer shift cables hold up any better at the ratchet drum to the constant flexing and bending and friction than steel cables.

THANK YOU SO MUCH ...

For taking the time to indicate the link to the thread which shows that you (a self-proclaimed machinist!?!) cannot do simple arithmetic ...​

Perhaps I am 'retarded'; BUT, what must that say about you?!?

That is, you should be nicer to YOURSELF and not refer to yourself as a "lunatic"!!​

Thank goodness you simply needed to follow the specs which someone else gave you AND that you were not responsible for assembling what you fabricated ...

OR for the design of said objects!!!!​