I am not a mechanic. So honestly my experience with cables in general is limited. I have had three or four bikes all with the original cables, and they all worked fine. To me a cable is a cable. How bad could it be. The xtr cables though did seem a step above what I am used to. The cables themselves must be teflon coated or something because they were slick, and those rubber boots to keep the mud out immpressed me and seemed highly functional. I just put two bikes together for myself, I used xtr's on the first bike and liked them so much I used them again on the other bike. I think price is important also. If you can get a good deal on a set of cable go for it I think. You want to make sure the cable housing is the noncompessable shifter cable not the brake cable stuff and grease your cable before installing it in the housing and I think you will be satisfied for at least a season. Good luck.<sL4yEr>RuLz said:Thanks y'all for the feedback. Anybody have any opinions on the Gore stuff? I know it's no longer made, but a LBS has some they're recommending.
Fender, you say the XTR cables are "acceptable?" That doesn't sound too convincing.
i've heard alot of horror stories about nokon for shift cables. i was going to pick up a set then ended up going with dura ace and i have to say i couldnt be happier with them. 12 bucks cheaper than xtr at the lbs here.<sL4yEr>RuLz said:
Because fixed mounting hardpoints are more secure, 100% uncompressible, and create less drag were there's no cables. 100% runs are fine for braking but for shifting its better to use as less housing as possible and as much "hard" anchoring as is plausible. Complete or extensive derrailleur cable runs are a necesity on some frames but I wouldn't go around drilling out the cable stops on my frames when sealed end will do a dang fine job of keeping them clean.Bikinfoolferlife said:
Over the long run, those just don't work better, at least for shifters. The nature of shift cable and brake cable is entirely different of course. If you've worked in a shop for some time and worked on full-cable-housing bikes, you'd know what a pain it is. There's a magical solution called dry-slide that uses molybdenum. I can put that into cable housing and it works like magic to free up old gunky cables and make then run smooth and free. That obviously doesn't work when you have full length housing, and when a little moisture gets into a full-length-housing type setup, it wreaks havoc and usually results in siezed cables, something we rarely see with non-full-housing setups.Bikinfoolferlife said:
dry-slide is great stuff, i use that on all the cables for my motorcycles.Jm. said:
Ageed...I have gores on my bike now for ~5 years. I set them up myself which was quite the pain at the time. They have run flawless ever since, but if you don't know what you're doing, you're basically wasting your money on gores. I just changed my brake cables out to teflon coated ones last year, but my gore shifter cables are still going. I will probably change them out to teflon this year if I need to.richwolf said:
The XTR set is a little pricey but pretty nice. It brings everything you need including the teflon coated cables, pregreased housing, and all the required sealed end caps. I think the teflon coated cables are a nice touch since they are slightly slicker and don't react to moisture and seize up as easy as many generic notso-stainless steels cables. FYI there was an article posted a while back in a german mag about machine testing done on most of the popular cable systems measuring drag and the standard 4mm shimano/jagwire cable scored the best.<sL4yEr>RuLz said:This is just the sort of feedback I'm looking for. Overall consensus, as quoted from Flavor Flav: "Don't believe the hype!" Still though, it's definitely time to change the cables on my bike. I'm leaning heavily towards the XTR cables. Univeral has a set for $22.00, which isn't too bad. In the long run, I just want something that works really well.
Richwolf, I just saw your post on the gore system. I'm gonna call the place that still has some available and check their price, installed. Since I'm not too technically gifted.
) Granted, my last helmet was 9 years old (finally went out in a blaze of glory protecting my nogin) and I finally made the jump to HID (well worth it!)
