Recommend to me some bowden cables...

[Polar Bear]

I'm pulling together the final bits and pieces for my flat barred road bike.   It will have Shimano XT shifters and mechs and Avid V brake calipers and levers.   I need a full set of cables for the bike.

What does the panel recommend please, and why?   

[hubner]

Wilkinsons, cheap, works well enough.

[Jakob W]

Wiggle lifeline work well enough for me.

[rogerzilla]

Shimano cables are drawn after winding so they are externally smooth.  Most others aren't (e.g. Clarks, which are otherwise quite reliable).

[Kim]

Wilkinsons, cheap, works well enough.

Dispute that:  At some point they switched from 99p stainless inners to £1.49 galvanised.  One weekend in Wales and you'll need a new set.  Guess how I discovered this?

As for outers I tend to use the proper Shimano stuff for indexed gears.  Brakes and non-indexed gears get SJS's unbranded PTFE lined brake outer, which I bought a lifetime's supply of a couple of years ago on account of the amount that I was getting through on the recumbents.

[Brucey]

- polished stainless inners, plus
- decent quality outer cables (shimano or jagwire seem OK), plus
- sealed ferrules where it might be useful (i.e. where water might get in otherwise) plus
- decent lube, plus
- the magic ingredient, a careful prep

 This kind of setup is not expensive, it works well enough on a flat barred bike and if the cables start to get a bit draggy, you can usually 'refresh them' by pulling the cables out of the slotted guides and cleaning/relubing them as required.

cheers

[ACyclingRooster]

Wilkinsons, cheap, works well enough.

+1. Why pay through the nose for stuff that has loads of advertising in glossy magazines pushing it into the hands of the gullible.
I have been using Wilkinsons (Wilco) cables for both brakes and gears for some 14yrs+ and never had a failure of ant description.
I usually buy my outer cables off of E'bay and for the last 6 or 7 bikes that I have built from the frame-up I have bought plain smooth Silver Grey - again - cheap and cheerful - but very very reliable.
Always finished with ferrules and cable end nipples.

[Kim]

- decent lube

I find that good quality inners in PTFE lined outers work best for longest without lube.  Once they start gunking up, a flush with lube can restore functionality for a while, but I wouldn't lube new cables.

Flat barred DF bikes have an easy time of it cables-wise.  It's recumbents and folders with their long enclosed cable runs and potential for greater water ingress where this really matters.

[hubner]

I'll add that I use non-aero brakes (side-pulls) with full length outers, and down tube friction gear levers.

My cables make gradual smooth bends and I ways lube them, even if they have plastic liners, I don't think I've ever seen rust on my cables, water simply can't get inside the outers. I think I've had one broken cable and that was a rear gear cable where it broke at the point where it enters the braze on on top of the bb. I've had to replace a few cheap unbranded front cables because the nipple kept breaking off.

I do not routinely replace cables. The only reasons for replacing cables is if the ends of the inners get too frayed, or the outer ends get too bent to straighten. Even then the rear ones get shortened and reused for the fronts.

[Kim]

Even then the rear ones get shortened and reused for the fronts.

Good tip.  I sometimes find that a terminally gunked up outer contains a perfectly serviceable inner that can be cleaned and re-used if you cut the splayed bit off.

[Polar Bear]

Never tried Wilco's before save for Schwalbe inner tubes.  I am familiar with both Jagwire and Shimano.   

Just thought:  I might have a full set of Shimano outers still adorning the carcass of mllePB's mtb which is entombed in the workshop loft.   Must check that out.

[Brucey]

- decent lube

I find that good quality inners in PTFE lined outers work best for longest without lube.  Once they start gunking up, a flush with lube can restore functionality for a while, but I wouldn't lube new cables.

the 'gunking up' can often  be the liner abrading away; this will vary with the inner cable used and the loading. However I think this can be more likely to occur with a dry liner vs one with the right kind of lube in it.

 However the wrong lube will cause the liner to soften, swell etc or for example  the thickeners in some greases can cause the cable to immediately become draggy at low loads on long cable runs. By contrast a good lube won't do any of these things. 

The prospect of water ingress into cables raises some interesting issues;  I think that the right kind of lube helps deter water ingress and indeed most types of sealed ferrule don't work well (or last long) unless some kind of lubricant is used.

Long cable housing runs that (say) go via the BB (and therefore  have a low spot in them) are particularly troublesome if the sealing is in any way suspect. If they are assembled dry, and then see any weather, they will just fill up with water and usually go bad in a relatively short period of time.  (Some folk use a little Vaseline or grease at the top end of the cable so that the water won't get in so easily.)

 Once the rot starts the conditions within such cables (i.e. assembled dry then contaminated with water)  can become extremely corrosive, and the passivation on the surface of stainless steel can be lost; I have even seen stainless steel inner cables corrode wholesale (i.e. to the point that the cable will break or can be broken easily simply by flexing it) within such cable runs.

So it is lube every time for me!

cheers

[Si S]

What's a good lube Brucey?

TIA

[Jakob W]

Is the Shimano cable grease any good? Not particularly cheap on a per-ml basis, but then a tube should last basically forever...

[Brucey]

a suitable lube will vary with the material used in the cable liner.  There are a few that are worth considering

- shimano lube (with their cables, obviously)
- rock'n'roll cable lube (they claim with any cables I think)

I discovered (by trial and error) some years ago that the old Finish Line grease (white Teflon type) works OK with the then current Shimano SP41 cable housing.  This grease contains a single type of fully synthetic oil. Such oils will either attack polymers horribly, or they won't attack much at all. By contrast blended or mineral-derived oils tend to contain a mixture of things so can cause problems with polymers at various speeds.  So I've been using that for a long time now. Eventually I may run out of this grease but this will take a while; I bought a 'pail' of the stuff....

cheers