AICAN superlight cable system

[Johnny Rad]

With ~30mi yesterday on my Aican brake cable set and EE brakes, I wanted to share that both work as advertised and every bit as good (or better?) than OEM components. Brake activation and modulation feel every bit as good as my outgoing prev-gen Red brakes and Alligator iLinks. Braking power, on the other-hand, is definitely increased over my old set-up. I just have to back-off a hair!



(I mixed in Mini iLinks for shift cables ... lighter according to Fairwheel)

[1415chris]

Did you manage, by any chance, to weight it before putting on the bike?
I'm curious how it compares to the I-link/PC set (on my bike paired with EE as well).

PS.
What's the thing hanging on the head tube?

[Johnny Rad]

I weighed the cabling sets prior to installation (see my bike thread in the signature below and the "what did you buy today" thread), but relied on Fairwheel's "installed" weights: http://fairwheelbikes.com/aican-bungaru ... 5d60be5b5f

It's a wrist band hanging on the head tube. If you believe the back story, the CSC team did it in part because they were tired of seeing Lance's and maybe nearly everyone else's ubiquitous yellow wrist bands. It says, "Harden The Fcuk Up." And it's not mis-spelled. I like it for the HTFU message more than the back story.

[dereksmalls]

Must be a messed up liner section in there some where.. Push some cable through and where it jams pull the housing apart. Replace as many links as you need too..
The shifter and brake housings are identical so you should have plenty to work with

We determined in the end it was the cable. We tried threading through other pieces of unused housing and also the front housing and the same thing, wouldn't come out the other end, yet the front cable had no problem. The good people at Fairwheel though said they'd send out a new cable for me

[drchull]

1415chris

I have set up both these and iLinks. The learning curve is steeper with the iLinks and they are more fiddly as the liner takes a lot of work to get perfect, kink it once and you are in trouble. You have to be very diligent about compressing the iLinks at all times. I found though that going through the process of taking out the stretch in the cables and pulling the cables through with a little more pressure usually compressed them fine as long as nothing happened wit the liner. Never really had any more trouble with them after set up than with regular housings other than difficulty with inline adjusters being a 2 hand job.

Th Aican are definitely easier to set up though again you have to be diligent about taking out the slack. Much easier process as you are not worrying about the liner like on iLinks. Took me some fiddling to figure out the length of the rear mech housing as it never quite looked right.

[liketoride]

I cannot find any pics on how to safely install the powercordz on the 12 red front and rear d. Can someone help me out with what they have done and works for them please with the 12 reds. thanks

[Johnny Rad]

After about 5 months on my first set of Aican brake cable and EE brakes, I'm happy to report that it's been all roses. Two-thumbs up!

[wrcompositi]

Hi, photonphyler:

I'm thinking about using your method for my Aican brake housings, but a little worried about the possibility of derailleur cables' smaller heads popping off. How do your cables hold up?

[Tom-s]

To the current users, please let me know what your experiences are with these.
I've used nokon in the past and found these very durable. How does Aican compare to Nokon/Alligator housing when it comes to performance/durability?

[Johnny Rad]

Mods: Maybe these two threads should be merged?

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=109372&start=45

[jpanspac]

I'm using the AICAN brake housing with KCNC titanium brake cables. During installation I got a little careless and crushed the plastic liner extension on one side of one of the long segments. I was messing with the cable, let the links loosen and separate on the cable, then tightened it up without making sure all of the links were seated properly. Brake lever action was a bit rough at first, but after a while it smoothed out so I decided just to leave it as is. Overall I'm pretty happy with the combination.

[dereksmalls]

Mine is still going smoothly as ever on both brake and gear

[jpanspac]

Someone PM'd me with a question about the KCNC cables. Apparently I can't reply to PMs yet, so here it is. The cables might have stretched a little at first, but not enough to be noticeable. I clamped the cables at the brakes, pumped the levers several times, loosened, fiddled with the cables, rinse & repeat several times. In fact, that's how I managed to crush the link extension. So by the time I finalized everything the cables were as stretched as they were going to be.

[MNX1024]

How's everything holding up for everyone?

Can someone comment on how these compare to yokozuna in terms of performance in shifting and braking?

Also tempted to use mini i-links for shift and the aican for brake to have a lighter setup, but what's the performance between the two with shifting?

Almost forgot to mention, how does these work with Planet X brakes?

[dereksmalls]

Mine is still holding up perfectly fine, no issues at all