Great review, thanks Frankie!

I'm pretty tempted by these but am loath to part with my current tried and trusted best shifting with my Yokozuna shift cables on my Red (not so wedded to the Yokozuna brake cables - too stiff (affects brake adjustment) without noticeable benefit).

So 2 questions:

1. Have you used Yokozuna shift cables and if so how do they compare to the Mini links.

2. Presumably you are installing the I-links under your bar tape? How does that feel?

Thanks again!

GJ

Another great post Frankie. A few questions:

1) From previous posts there was some talk of heating the inner liner over a flame then cutting it and squashing the end. Is that necessary to fix the end of the inner liner, or should you cut inner liner where the cable ends? Or should you leave it longer? What's best? Why?

2) I heard previously that enough i-links come in one packet to do two bikes. Is this true? On a standard road bike would you need additional ferrules etc?

3) How would i-links work on a bike with a full-length rear brake cable (my C40)? My guess is that it wouldn't be so good as the i-links would rattle in the cable guides. Thoughts?

4) Why is it that the minis are not to be used for braking? On my old TT bike I ended up using gear cables for brakes. Seemed to work OK. My fingers are not strong enough to stretch 1mm square steel cables!

Thanks Gearjunkie!
To answer your questions:

• No, I have not used Yokozuna's and therefore I can not comment on them.
• The I-links are indeed under the bartape. When inspecting the tape on the touch one can feel the little humps and bumps of the cables, but when riding you do not notice that.
• (this can depend on the bartape that one is using. I can only assume that when using thinner tapes like fizik this is more apparent. The beads are in a place where your hand doesn't rest, so all in all i think it won't be annoying)

Thanks mrfish!

• On my installation I didn't heat and squash the end of the liner as most of the time the liner is held in place by friction. However I saw that the liner on the rear der. loop had moved a bit so I might need to do that afterall. I'll keep riding it like this for now and check back later and report on it. (makes note in calendar for two weeks from now.)
  
• No, in one package is enough to do one bike. you will have enough spares to make another fancy loop or create a necklace for your wife or girlfriend. The package comes with an stupid amount of ferrules and other parts. you don't need as many.
  For the front brake I didn't use any additional hardwear. just the I-links and liner from the lever to the brake. On the rear brake I used two cable stop adapter thingies. one for ech cable stop. and the end of the I-links just went into the brake.
  For the front derailleur cable I used one of them cable stop adapter thingies. And for the rear derailleur I used two of them cable stop adapter thingies and one ferrule. The ferrule went into the cable stop at the chainstay and I added a cablestop adapter thingie to the links that went into the rear derailleur.
  
• In your bike with full length rear brake housing they would boost your brakepower. I'm interested to know if they would fit into the guide. Also, I'm not shure about the rattle as they might fit snugly in there. This is a thing that you need to find out.
  
• Not completely comparable as the products use a different material, but do you remember the topic about the breaking carbon Nokons? They probably broke because they couldn't handle the stress put on them. I think it is the same with these Minis. They are so small and the material is so thin that it probably can not handle the peak loads put onto them that braking inflicts. I have used shift inner cables for braking without any problem as well, but I'm not going to be the test lemming for this as it seems to fragile.

[edit for adding this pic]

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Any reason why these could not be used on my future Di2 build?

erm, because you don't need shift cables?

Can you be more specific, or do you just want to let us know that you are building a bike with DA DI2?

I edited my earlier message to add a picture of the parts.

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Thanks Frankie. I'll probably get some to put on my light bike, then donate any excess to our tandem.

That has had more rear brake setups than any bike in history (probably) in an attempt to get it to stop quickly. Team Sky's philosophy of marginal gains is paying off though as it's now possible to lock the rear wheel 2-up while also pulling a loaded child trailer. When it's sunnier I will post a couple of pictures as it's gradually becoming a weight weenie tandem as it gets donations off other bikes.

Well Di2 still needs brake cables.

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Hi Frankie, do you think that these would work with Internally routed bars? What about some of the tighter bends? There is probably a theoretical limit to the bend due to the pieces snapping together. mini vs regular. thanks

It was great to see that table listing the weights per meter of all the different cables. I am wondering if anyone knows, for comparison purposes, the weight of Yokozuna cables?

Just received my I-links en mini I-links from the US here in the Netherlands.
4 days!

Why is the liner from de I-link brake black and from the mini I-link shift white?
Is the last one also available in black?

Hey there! Are you not using the orange rubber bumpers that protect the frame from cable rub? Will they slide on over any cable system or just the iLink? If you think they will, would you mind me buying them off you? Please let me know, cheers! (P.S. I have been looking for something like this for ages and was so happy to see it in your photos so fingers crossed!)

Hi everyone!

I've had a read around and can't see the answer to my question, so here goes...

Can you use powercordz with the ilink minis?

And if so then which size (1.2 or 1.5) and which liner should you use?

I've just got my set of ilink minis and was hoping to set them up and after i'm happy with them change to use powercordz for an even greater weight saving!

The iLink mini's come with teflon coated 1.2mm stainless shifter cables so while I have not tried it, if you are using the 1.2 powercordz, then I see no reason why it would not work.

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Has anyone tried theses with under-bar routing like the Stealth EVO or internal routing like the BMC (I see this question sitting unanswered above and thought I'd bump it back to the forefront of peoples' minds).

And thank you Frankie for the detailed report. This site proves so much more useful than any cycling magazine and more so than most informed bike shops...

If you mean with road shifters like DA7900 or SRAM, then yes, I am using them with 7900 but will stretch a bit and say that if nothing else, the smaller diameter of the links should make internal routing easier.

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