Gore Ride-on cables - not impressed
ricky1980
Posts: 891
Got a pair of new sram red shifters and they came with the Gore cables.
now i bought some Jagwire ones and wanting to replace the Gore ones. Good thing I did. the left shifter cable was a piece of cake to get out. But the right shifter was a PAIN. the reason for being such a pain is not because Gore's cable is bad, but i think there is some kind of design flaw in Sram shifters.
Anyway long story short, unloaded the shifter completely and gave the cable some slack...couldn't see the end poking out...so shift up and down a few times trying to loosen up the cable end. then i realised the cable end was jammed (this is definitely a design flaw by SRAM) so I had to open the side panel and get the end unjammed (this was not easy when SRAM's screws are fixed in by some kind of pneumatic jack like the F1 wheelnut gun, near impossible to loosen up).
right, i am thinking i can use this cable on my current bike when i get a set of second hand SRAM shifters. No i can't. This is when Gore's cable design is really bad. The cables are covered with some kind of super slick film/membrane coating which i assume is there to reduce friction. This stuff breaks down so damn easily. By simply shifting up and down and give the cable some slack, the entire end length of cable that was wound up in the shifter mechanism has the coating completely shredded. There were some evidence of it in the shifting mechanism, which i thought was terrible as that can clearly cause some issue when it hardens. Furthermore, cos the cable end was jammed, so I had to give the cable a bit of slack and some force, a section of the cable is really bent. When i looked at this bit, the cable wires were becoming really loose as the film/membrane that was suppose to bind them had been shredded under the shifting actions. I put pretty much the same bend in the Jagwire cable to feed it into the shifter and it still came out ok.
So in conclusion, Gore's cable has serious design flaws. the membrane is good idea but in practise it would have disintegrated within 10 shifts and probably will cause jamming at the housing end or definitely will cause significant friction and reduced shifting smoothness. second is how fragile the cables are; how prone to fraying they are...not impressed.
Quite surprised as this is standard issue for Sram's top of the range stuff
now i bought some Jagwire ones and wanting to replace the Gore ones. Good thing I did. the left shifter cable was a piece of cake to get out. But the right shifter was a PAIN. the reason for being such a pain is not because Gore's cable is bad, but i think there is some kind of design flaw in Sram shifters.
Anyway long story short, unloaded the shifter completely and gave the cable some slack...couldn't see the end poking out...so shift up and down a few times trying to loosen up the cable end. then i realised the cable end was jammed (this is definitely a design flaw by SRAM) so I had to open the side panel and get the end unjammed (this was not easy when SRAM's screws are fixed in by some kind of pneumatic jack like the F1 wheelnut gun, near impossible to loosen up).
right, i am thinking i can use this cable on my current bike when i get a set of second hand SRAM shifters. No i can't. This is when Gore's cable design is really bad. The cables are covered with some kind of super slick film/membrane coating which i assume is there to reduce friction. This stuff breaks down so damn easily. By simply shifting up and down and give the cable some slack, the entire end length of cable that was wound up in the shifter mechanism has the coating completely shredded. There were some evidence of it in the shifting mechanism, which i thought was terrible as that can clearly cause some issue when it hardens. Furthermore, cos the cable end was jammed, so I had to give the cable a bit of slack and some force, a section of the cable is really bent. When i looked at this bit, the cable wires were becoming really loose as the film/membrane that was suppose to bind them had been shredded under the shifting actions. I put pretty much the same bend in the Jagwire cable to feed it into the shifter and it still came out ok.
So in conclusion, Gore's cable has serious design flaws. the membrane is good idea but in practise it would have disintegrated within 10 shifts and probably will cause jamming at the housing end or definitely will cause significant friction and reduced shifting smoothness. second is how fragile the cables are; how prone to fraying they are...not impressed.
Quite surprised as this is standard issue for Sram's top of the range stuff
Road - Cannondale CAAD 8 - 7.8kg
Road - Chinese Carbon Diablo - 6.4kg
Road - Chinese Carbon Diablo - 6.4kg
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Comments
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try to inspect them when you get a chance especially the rear cable in the right shifter...not sure how it fares with shimano mechanism. but the membrane i can see disintegrating over time quite easily due to constant rubbingRoad - Cannondale CAAD 8 - 7.8kg
Road - Chinese Carbon Diablo - 6.4kg0 -
I've had ride-on professional cables fitted for 12 months (Campag) with zero issues.0
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the coating on ride-on cables can strip and clog, i've had it happen myself
probably depends on riding conditions, if dust/dirt gets on the cable where it contacts the outer then i'm sure it'll gradually abrade, once there's an edge to catch, the coating peels easily
personally i wouldn't use ride-on cables again
to get cables in/out of sram shifters, the shifter needs to be in the correct position, otherwise the head can catch, fwiw i've never had a problem with mine, but these are the model before the red/black ones, not the new onesmy bike - faster than god's and twice as shiny0 -
when you say the new ones (shifters) are you referring to the 2012/13 variety with the yaw front end and ergo shifters?Road - Cannondale CAAD 8 - 7.8kg
Road - Chinese Carbon Diablo - 6.4kg0
