Got my set of der. cables in the other day... packaging was very nice, and instructions were mostly clear. I was expecting the housing to be a bit lighter - it pretty much weighs the same as my RideOn professional housing. The cables themselves are pretty sweet - practically weightless, at 2g per cable. So I saved about 10g per cable swapping out the front and rear derailleur. To be honest though, I really like the sealed aspect of the RideOn cable housing, so just stuck with that and put the powercordz through all of the housing I still had on my bike - which worked quite well. Shifting is smooth and spot on.

Biggest upside for me is the fact that I won't have a fraying cable - threading the powercordz through the shift levers was a snap! There is nothing worse than having one or two strands start fraying on an expensive cable like Rideon. Biggest downside is the extra effort that needs to happen to secure the cable to the derailleurs. Powercordz suggests that you loop the cable around the bolt so your basically tying a knot around each bolt. I found that with this setup, it was quite a bit harder to get the initial cable pull right - where with steel cables, I would just pull up with a set of pliers and tighten the derailleur bolt. This took much more finesse.

So, all in all, I think next time I would just opt for the cables themselves (which seem to run $35), than getting the whole prime system at $70 (since I didn't even use it). I'm not sure how I would feel about getting these for brakes yet - I like the idea of a steel cable that won't snap if it is against a jagged edge. Happy I cut 20g, and tried something new though. I think its a great product - perhaps I'm just neurotic that I like the completely sealed housing of Ride on, but for $70, I wish they made it a sealed system. I'm looking forward to seeing for myself if they will stretch over the next few rides or not.

Glad you had a good experience with them. My friend and I rigged the shifting cables up with powercordz prime and I had nothing but trouble due to too much friction in the handlebar part of the rear derailleur housing of the stock cable housing. We ran the cables out the side of SRAM red shifters as opposed to the back, and with normal amounts of housing to prevent binding.

I had ordered a set of Jag-wire racer which included both brake and derailleur, so we used these for the brake. The brake set was fine, so I figured to try and redo the front end with the remaining derailleur cables. The only changes we made were running the FD/RD cables out the back of the shifters, and using more housing cable for the runs.

Not that I've ever had any previous experience with them, but it sounds like maybe we rigged them up incorrectly. Others appear to be having success with them.

I recently installed Prime brake and gear systems, and also noticed a surprising amount of drag with the housing/ferules. I previously used ilinks and they feel virtually friction-free compared to the powercordz housing.

So I ended up using my ilinks housing with my powercordz, and they work a lot better now. I also did a bit of tinkering with the shifter housing interface, and shaved off material around to allow teflon liner to fit past the housing stops on the shifter to serve the same purpose as the nosed ferules and protect the cables.

photo of right brake housing:



After a couple weeks of riding I'm happy with the way they've been performing.

It is a bit disappointing that the prime housing does not work as well as aftermarket housing like ilinks, and I will probably just keep using ilinks and buy the powercord cables by themselves unless some improvements are made in how the powercordz perform with the powercordz housing/ferrules.

FYI: there's another thread about Power Cordz: http://weightweenies.starbike.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=92453

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Wilier Cento Uno, 13.25 lbs / 6.01 kilograms
http://weightweenies.starbike.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=95887

A follow-up on my experience w/ Power Cordz, FWIW: I got the complete Prime system very excited by the light weight, color options and the basic concept. Unfortunately, my experience with them despite the heroic efforts of my LBS and after several calls to the Power Cordz guys for advice has been a nightmare. Initially no amount of effort could get the Cordz to work on the RD due to too much friction in the chainstay sleeve on my Wilier Cento Uno. So, we removed the sleeve to replace it with the Power Cordz housing but the housing is a bit fatter than some housings and would not fit in the chainstay. After another call to Power Cordz, we then tried a Jagwire housing in the chainstay. Shifting worked fine going up but not down due, again, to too much friction somewhere in the routing. We untaped the bars, tried every lube we could find, but could never get the DA-7900 RD to shift properly with the Cordz. I've never had trouble with it using steel cables: DA, Yokozuma, Jagwire. The FD works OK.

The brakes have also been a bit of a headache getting the Cordz installed properly and even then there is more resistence than steel cables produce. I guess Power Cordz are very sensitive to the bend in the housing/routing as well as a bit more finicky than steel cables. For the $$$, I'm disappointed and would not recommend them. Love the concept but they simply haven't worked satisfactorily for me. Perhaps others have had better results depending on the specifics of their bikes.

I truly wish they would work for me but it's back to heavy, silver steel...

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Wilier Cento Uno, 13.25 lbs / 6.01 kilograms
http://weightweenies.starbike.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=95887

Wow, that's really too bad Fourthbook - both from your wasted time standpoint, and the product itself.

FWIW, I'm very very happy with my shifter cords after putting on about 150 miles. Absolutely no stretch in the cables, and no adjustments needed since first setup. And obviously, my setup was very easy and straightforward.

But IMO, no cable is worth the kind of trouble your going through.. 8-10g of savings per cable just doesn't make sense for that level of frustration - and then just to be left with a useless set of cables.

I have to say that I've heard/read not one good word about their stock housing. I just read the velo news article on them (which was published a while back) and they even preferred stock shimano housing. Considering their prime system is technically called "prime" because of the housing (and they are charging a premium price for it); its hard to believe it performs so badly.

Hi,

Sorry to hear about the bad luck some had.
I was just recently looking at a webshop that carried the Prime sets as well as single Powercordz cables.
Is it correct that the housings' external diameter is 5mm for both shift and brake cables?
Should that be correct then I foresee all kinds of problems; Campa derailleurs, handle bars with inner routing etc.

Other than that I can't undestand why they still keep on using this fragile and soft outer on the cables proper. It's so easily damaged that it's a miracle no one had any serious accident yet...
If they'd use a harder plastic sheething (either dripped onto the fibres or heatshrunk) the cable would be better protected and even be less of a cause of unwanted friction points.

As someone else said as well, I too like the basic idea but it seems to be an endless "work in progress" so to speak.

Ciao,

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Being a snob is an expensive hobby.

Fourthbook's LBS here, wish I had run into that velo article before today. I think new housing sounds like the best option, unfortunately I've only enough of the blue grommets left to get the brakes done. The number of provided grommets seems to assume that everything will go right the first time around.

Has anyone here used traditional Jagwire housing with Power Cordz? It's what we keep in stock.

Yeah... those grommets. I'm not using them. I blew threw them trying to get the setup right on the rear derailleur! (I couldn't get the cable to pull tight enough on the first many tries; and wrapping the powercordz 180 around the grommet and tightening the bolt pretty much shreds it.)..

So, I'm not using them on either derailleur, and have had zero ill effects.I've probably shortened the life of the cable in some way though, I'm sure.