can you beat Gore gear cables?

heard the alligator links are good but they corrode & creak

XTR seems more than good enough, and cheaper. The outers can be a wee bit brittle though, the plastic cracks off sometimes.

I like standard cable, standard outer and middleburn cable oilers. Only problem now is WD40 have changed the little red pipe that comes with it to a size that no longer fits. Not that WD40 is the only thing you can use to clean out the insides

Much cheaper than sealed cable kits and if you cut the outer in the right place the O-ring on the cable oiler will act as a bumper/spacer to keep the cable from rubbing on your frame

Yep.

Same money will get you a 10m roll of sp41 and 10 reasonable inners which will do 5 complete sets and last 7 years or more. I doubt fancy cables will last half as long.

sp41 outers, xtr inners, middleburn cable oilers – much cheaper, very good shifting, last a yr of weekly mud.

You don’t even need XTR inners Iain, Wilkinsons are currently selling good inners (Fibrax IIRC) for 97p!

Shimano SP41 outers with XTR inners, never had a shifting problem with that set up

Wilkinsons are currently selling good inners (Fibrax IIRC) for 97p!

scurries off to order some 😆

No.

Pricey, but will last for years if properly fitted but the key advantage isn’t economics, it’s the fact that they never deteriorate (until the end of their life). They are like brand new cables all the time, not just for 5 times like PPs example. AND you never have to oil them or clean them out or anything. And no need to refit once a year or whatever.

I use them.

I’ve got I-links on my DH bike, road bike, HT and mini-I-links on the full-suss.
Oldest ones are two years and other than a tightening a month or so after fitting to remove the stretch they have never been touched.

Much better than similar-looking Nokons.

Only one thing wrong with I-links, and that’s price!

Pricey, but will last for years if properly fitted but the key advantage isn’t economics, it’s the fact that they never deteriorate (until the end of their life)

So they don’t deteriorate until they, errr, ummm, deteriorate then?

Remember, I am THE king of value for money. And they ain’t. 🙂

Can you fit them with full length outers?

XTR seems more than good enough, and cheaper. The outers can be a wee bit brittle though, the plastic cracks off sometimes.

I’ve found with XTR outers (SP41) they may be susceptible to UV degradation. And perhaps the grey outers are worse in this respect than the black?

I just fitted a Clarks eqv. of XTR. I’ll let you know how I get on in a year’s time.

Tucker, yeah, I fitted XTR to my wife’s bike and the outers cracked after 3 years. The seem to go brittle don’t they?

Yokozuna?

Transfil ‘Flying Snakes’ http://www.wiggle.co.uk/transfil-flying-snake-gear-cable-set been running the same set on my hardtail for 4 years with no worrys

Just use full length outers. About every 6mths or less if needed …put bike in stand at about 45 deg, slacken gear wire by supporting mech, and drip TFT2 into end near the handlebars. Keep going until this washes muck out of the other end of the cable. I hardly ever need to change outers since I have been doing this….

full length outers.

none of the faff, marginally heavier.

purists will tell you its not as good, as there is more friction and compression involved, than when using regular stops, but the friction and compression never changes, where as using stops it soon falls off peak performance as crap gets into the lines.

i hear gores are amezin, but i couldnt be bothered with the setting them up, and they are MIGHTY expensive for what is a consumable.

Power cordz with full length outers, super smooth.

itsy bitsy detail, you are aware that Gore, Transfil, Nokon are effectively full length outers because of the liner?

except, the are not, as the “full length inners” have joints in them
i believe its quite easy to make a mess of the joints (though ive never tried it myself)

that and FLA for a bike will cost 3 or 4 quid.

Gores are more like 20 iirc??

No, you can’t – they are the dogs’ danglies. They do take some setting up, and given the initial cost, ‘measure twice cut once’ has to be your mantra, but take your time, do it right, and enjoy the years of untroubled shifting. I’m currently at 3 years from one set, with no need for adjusting, lubing or any such.

Remember, I am THE king of value for money. And they ain’t.

He is you know. And he knows stuff about stuff. I trust his judgement.

I remember the mechanics in the bike shop I worked in dismissing the Gore sets as ‘overpriced unnecessary crap’. And ran standard Shimano cables on their bikes. Keep it clean and check regularly was their advice.

No.

Yes.

Loved the first generation gore cables but my last set from the current generation delaminated and clogged the liner. I’ve gone back to shimano (with tweaks)

I had Gore cables fail on me very quickly, filaments started coming away from the cable at the chainstay opening and degraded very rapidly – might have been the bike shop’s cutting / fitting at fault, but decided that if a bike shop can’t fit them properly then they were too fragile & expensive. Replaced with XTR which were cheaper and have been faultless, going strong 3 yrs on with no lubing and barely a touch on the barrel adjuster once initially indexed, I’m utterly impressed.

Eh? the inner cable with the filament on should never be exposed on Gore cables, the middle liner sheath runs the whole way apart from the cable nipple at the lever and the cut end at the mech. The middle liner gets exposed at various places (assuming you aren’t running full length outers) but that’s why it’s there, to keep the inner fully sealed.

Whilst I wouldn’t replace a perfectly good set of normal cables (say on a new bike) I would only buy Gore cables as replacements (both on MTB and road).

I use XTR but I have the outers custom valved and then irradiated to reduce heat loss due to friction (by up to 137%). Any old inners will do, once they’ve been steeped in siberian tiger earwax for 6 months

Do the Gore’s outer still have a tendency to crack where they move a lot? I had them last time round and they cracked and split on my full suss bike after a year but lasted 5 years on the hardtail.

XTR only ever did me 6 months as they are not properly sealed. These days I go for cheap full outer if I can.

Nice sugestion of the siberian tiger ear wax, can I use it on my chain? It might be better than the mechanically recovered panda fat I currently use.