Weight Weenies

I have always just ran what came with my bike as far as cables. I am now running Sram Red which I believe come with Gore cables. The Powercordz has now caught my eye and I was wondering if some people could give me their thoughts and experiences on the product. Looking to do brakes and derailuers and was wondering on shifting performance and weight savings is worth the investment.

it is good if you want to shave off every last gram on the bike. in terms of performance, i have had good and bad experiences. personally, i like steel cables the best and only used powercordz to shave off every last gram i could on the weenie bike.

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i went from the sram supplied gore ride on cables to powercordz with nokon outer (using powercordz liner, not nokon's)

upside: shifting better, braking better, lighter, slight bling factor, once bedded in it's extremely stable

downside: fiddlier to fit than standard cables/outer, once fitted can't reliably remove/refit powercordz as the first clamping squishes the cover of the cable, if the cable cover is damaged you need to replace the cable

see here for fitting info/pics...

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the nokon bits do take a few rides to snug in, so early on you have to use barrel adjusters to reset tension, once it settles things are very stable long term, with a new install i leave a loop in the free ends of shifter cables so that after a few weeks i can bottom out the adjusters and pull through a bit more cable to reclamp for the final time

it does need some care to install correctly

Do you lube the cables when installing them? I use Shimano outer cables, they have run 1000kms with normal steel cables, would this be a problem?

i've never used lube with them, the powercordz liner i use is ptfe tubing so friction is low

if the outers are in good condition it should be ok, although there might be more drag than with the liner

You can expect to save in the order of 40 grams

I am parital to the Gore Rideon pro and sealed cablesets but dont like how the cable coating flakes off over time and am curious if anyone has used replaced the Gore cables with Powercordz while retaining the Gore housing and liners?

Since the company is currently offering buy 2, get one free, looks like I get to be the one to test the Gore Rideon/Powercordz combo.

I was a really early adopter of power cables. I wasn't that impressed on the shifting quality. the cables were a hair bigger in diameter than the steel counter part. Then it was you set it once and you can't move it again. I think now they are perfectly in line with steel cable diameters.

To prevent fraying... Now they have this:
http://www.powercordz.com/brake-clasps/grommet-clasps

I don't think they have it for derailleurs. Which means it is a set it once setup. Which is tricky... You gotta get it bang on right or you have wasted a lot of money.

In the end I went back to steel cables.

Pretty sure the company includes grommet clasps with deraileur and brake kits as well as individual cable sets.

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Alas, time to return the Powercordz.

Cheers! wrote:The cables were a hair bigger in diameter than the steel counter part.

Yep, thats exactly what I learned this weekend. Both the Powercordz deraileur and brake cables seem to be ~.5mm larger in diameter than the equivalent cables from both Gore and Jagwire. Although the deraileur cables seemed to be a bit closer to steel than the brake cables, the Powercordz deraileur cables would not slide into a Gore Ride-on liner without being forced and when I tried to insert them into a length of Jagwire Racer housing, there simply was way to much stiction to even consider a full install.