Designed for mechanical disc brakes. Whats even more efficientThan hydraulic fluid?This stainless steel conduit. A sealed system with no compression and no friction. Zero. So your cable cable-actuated disc brakes will work like new long after some other systems have given upThe ghost.
Submitted by
nvmtbiker
a Cross Country Rider
from Reno, NV
Date Reviewed: June 29, 2010
Strengths: clean system. when set up right, it's essentially sealed and will stay clean.
Weaknesses: tough to set up
Bottom Line:
Not overly impressed with these cables. They are difficult to set up, and I felt like there was not a lot of improvement over the Flack Jacket that I'd been running. Certainly not what I'd expected. I ran the steel tubes along the tubes of my bike and used heat shrink to seal all of the connections and prevent rub and rattle. I gave up on running a tube on the front fork. It has very little support and just seemed kind of sketchy. They work as well as anything else, but in MHO not any better.
Bike Setup: full custom Rocky Mountain Element with Avid BB7 brakes
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Submitted by
DEride
a Weekend Warrior
from Newark, DE, USA
Date Reviewed: August 15, 2009
Strengths: None
Weaknesses: Very difficult to install. Need lots of tools. Very vague instructions.
Bottom Line:
Ended up stripping the wiring and had to go buy other cables. Complete waste of money. You need to have really nice tools (mainly cutting equipment) to get them installed. I spent 2+ hours trying to install them and made a call to tech support (helped a little), when the cable got stipped I went and bought Shimano XTRs and had them installed and working in 20 minutes. They may work well if you can get them instaleld, but be ready for a headache with installation.
Submitted by
Ryan
a Cross Country Rider
from Elkader, IA
Date Reviewed: October 26, 2007
Strengths: Amazing feel and power! Plus they are sealed up with heatshrink tubing so no dirt gets in to contaminate anything. Get them!
Weaknesses: Tedious getting set up initially, but once set up they are sooooo nice.
Bottom Line:
These are so nice. They took some time to get set-up but I zip tied everything well and you want to try to keep the sharp bends to a very minimum since that's what causes increased friction and harder braking. Since the stainless tubing has to be cut, use a pipecutter, not a hacksaw, for a precise fit. Then each joint gets covered with heatshrink tubing and seals the whole cable up nicely. Spend the time installing them correctly and you will love them too.
Strengths: Great feeling and perfomance, not only in my opinion since at least three mechanics in local bike shops, after looking and testing the system were amazed by the perfomance and feeling comparing if not overpassing the hydros. After one year of use the durability is still great.
Weaknesses: Needs attention at installation and some testing before making the final cutting.
Bottom Line:
Recommended 100% for anyone who want's the extra perfomance and super feeling, believe me you will not regret it!!
Bike Setup: Canyon Big Mountain 1 frame, Marzocchi All mountain 1 fork, Manitou 4 way swinger shock, Chris King headset, Mavic Deetraks Wheelset, Thomson Elite seatpost, Shimano XT groupset, Avid BB7 203mm brakes
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Submitted by
Lance Low
a Downhiller
from Pleasanton, CA
Date Reviewed: August 23, 2006
Strengths: Very fluid braking, no obstructions, not effected by mud
Weaknesses: Long install not for someone that is mechanically inclined, metal stainless steel jackets will bend over time either from crashes or other things.
Bottom Line:
These cables work really well, but over time they do get damaged and bent if your a downhiller like i am, that is why i am switching to hydralic brakes. But for a cross country person they work well. Just a little expensive to replace alot.
Bike Setup: 05' Ibex Apogee Sport LT, Manitou minute 1, wtb tires, mostly deore lx parts, 5 inches of travel all around.
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Submitted by
James Jordan
a Weekend Warrior
from Bonita Springs FL Lee County
Date Reviewed: March 25, 2006
Strengths: Ingenuity, linear actuation, removal of compromising cable flex.
Weaknesses: For the less than apt, can prove dificult to install to the best working order.
Bottom Line:
You can make this to be quite the braking system. DO NOT bend the tubing, it's too thin. But you can make elbows slightly with the ferrels and get a trick setup. I have one at the top tube and seat stay from the braze on boss, SS tube, small cable bend, and the run of SS tube parallel with seat stay and it's bosses/guides. The instructions are generic. Don't think you have to compromise your bikes lines to have this product. It's made to be cleaned up!
Bike Setup: IronHorse Warrior Hardtail 2005 with a 5.1 inch fork, 7" Hayes F and 6" Hayes R w/ MX2 calipers. Hayes levers too. Little tiny rocks, bread, gravy, cider, mud, apples, lead...
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Submitted by
Gaz
a Weekend Warrior
from Washington, DC
Date Reviewed: April 1, 2005
Strengths: A comparitively cheap component that delivers serious performance improvements. Avid BB7s + Speed Dial 7s + Full Metal Jackets = one excellent braking system. Also, the fully enclosed design means... dan-da-daaaan! Zero maintenance!
Weaknesses: Tricky to install.
Bottom Line:
Okay. These are hard to install. If you're not a savvy tech, get a friend to help, or pay your LBS to do the job. It's worth the hassle though, because once they're on, they're like the Ronco Rotisserie. Set it, and forget it. The increased performance on the BB7s was really noticable. And - here's my favourite part - couple them with Flak Jacket derailleur cables, and after a nice muddy or sandy ride, just hose the bike down, dry it off, quick chain lube, and you're DONE! Money, money, money all the way. If you own Avid mechs - or ANY mechanical disc brakes for that matter - these babies are a must have.
Strengths: replaces almost straight runs of housing with straight runs of stainless steel tubing.
Weaknesses: Very hard to assemble, for something that makes such little difference in performance. Stainless tubing bends and kinks making your $30.00 brake cable worthless. Comes with shrink tubing and doesnt indicate you need a heat gun anywhere on the directions. Directions are not very clear and there diagrams are poop.
Bottom Line:
Bad idea. Might as well give $30.00 to charity than buy this product. I am embarrased I bought such a gimmicky Item. Too hard to assemble,too easy to break
Similar Products Used: jagwire the fat ones reinforced with kevlar.
Bike Setup: who cares
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Submitted by
Brett Dulyea
a Cross Country Rider
from Newport Beach, CA
Date Reviewed: June 18, 2004
Strengths: Exponentially better breaking power.
Weaknesses: Feurells wouldn't fit my Cannondale Jekyll had to jury rig it, but it looks clean and works fine.
Bottom Line:
Seriously, if you have Avid mechs you won't believe the difference. When I installed my Avids I was impressed, but over time, my housings have become dirty and corroded. There was so much friction that I had to pull really hard to lock up the tire, which sucked. I bought this product hoping it would help. Not only did it fix the problem, but I now have more breaking power than when I first installed the brakes. Also, since the system is sealed I'm hoping that I don't have the corrosion and dirt problems I developed before. I had pretty high expectations, and even those were surpassed. Five burning dogs.
Bike Setup: Jekyll 500, XT build kit , Marz Mx Pro fork, Avid mechs, monkeylite bars, odi grips, ea50 post, hope/mavic wheels, full metal jackets, selle trans am seat.
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Submitted by
Cody
a Weekend Warrior
from Houston, TX
Date Reviewed: May 14, 2004
Strengths: Completely sealed, zero friction. It completely transformed the performance of my Avid mechanicals
Weaknesses: Weakness? There is one thing: Avid doesn't supply enough heat shrink tubing
Bottom Line:
This cable system is awesome. I immediately felt an increase in performance from my mech. discs after I put the Full Metals on. No exposed cable means they don't get dirty, which is what was causing my decrease in braking performance.
Avid only gives you enough heat shrink tubing for the front Jacket, but all you have to do is go to a hardware store and buy some shrink tubing from the electrical dept. It only costs about $1.50.
The cost of the Jackets may seem a little steep to most, but they're well worth the money.
Strengths: NO FRICTION!! FER REAL!!! Make mech. disc brakes feel like hydraulic. Easy to follow directions, easily adapts to almost any frame or cable routing.
Weaknesses: Not enough shrink wrap.
Bottom Line:
WOW!!! They should provide this cable system with all their mechanical disc brake systems. Everyone I know would pay a few extra $$$ for the smooth, clean feel! If you have mechanical disc brakes, and don't have these cables, BUY THEM IMMEDIATELY!!! you don't know what you are missing!!! Way to go AVID!!!
Strengths: Front Brake was smooth to set-up. Shrink wrap a +++. Ample amounts of Cable Housing.
Weaknesses: Not enough shrink wrap and Cable guides for rear set-up
Bottom Line:
Two Words: Customer Service. I had trouble setting up the rear brake on my F.S. bike. The cable kept pinching and locking up the rear disk after hitting drops (very uncool, especially on staircase landings). Called Avid tech service. The folks at Avid stayed on the line until we cornered the culprit (a hydralic cable guide). Think the problem is solved, a problem by the way that was of operator fault not Avids. Thanks again Avid. One more thing, Avid took care of the shrink wrap and cable guide issues.
This is a great system. I'm using it with a Fox coil 125mm fork and it works well. The heat-shrink tubing for the front jacket is a great idea and seals everything up nicely. The below poster has good intentions, but 20cm is way too long! Personally I haven't had any problems with the jacket catching on the fork eyelet (that's what the heat-shrink tubing is for - keep things smooth there), but if you are having that problem then I'd say about 4-5cm should be enough extra jacket.
This is really a great system, too bad they don't make them for hydraulics yet. Avid?
Submitted by
Chris Herraghty
a Cross Country Rider
from Edinburgh
Date Reviewed: July 23, 2003
Strengths: Improves performance, especially the rear - feels sweet! Fully sealed - no more crap in the cables. Looks cool.
Weaknesses: A bit expensive.
Bottom Line:
These cables are brilliant! Actually lighter than a full length of outer running to the back! Back brake is now no longer mushy.
**I recommend these for V-brakes and cantis too** I tried these on my hack bike and it worked really well!!
Have previously had problems with some avid stuff (flak jacket sucked hard), but this is a winner! Nice one avid!
A word of advice, make the front metal tube about 20cm longer than recommended - this means that the joint between the tube and the outer doesn't catch going through the eyelet when the forks compress.
Bike Setup: Trek 8000, Marzocchi Coil Marathons, Avid discs, Full XT, Hope Bulb/Mavic F219 wheels. Easton bits. USE post.
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Submitted by
kazimar
a Cross Country Rider
from portland, or
Date Reviewed: June 20, 2003
Strengths: Reduces friction Lighter than standard cables
Bottom Line:
I dig this cable system. Was pretty easy to set up, although the directions weren't really complete. Customer technical service was awesome...called them and they told me what was up. The # is 303-762-9353.
Pulling on the brake feels instant. The straight metal section makes a lot of sense, and it is well designed to be fully sealed if you set it up right.
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[FONT="Arial Black"]Even though I know this wont stop all of the "buy hydraulic" posts. I'll start by saying, Mechs work fine for what I do. I don't want to start another hydro vs Read More »
