|
|
|
|
Buy and Sell the from our Classifieds.
|
Shop for Similar Products
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
Submitted by
Sprocketeer
a Cross Country Rider
from Astoria, Queens, NYC
Date Reviewed: April 23, 2007 | | Favorite Trail: | In NYC? Woods surrounding Cunningham Park and beyond. | | Duration Product Used: | Less than 1 month | | Price Paid: |
$20.00 | | Purchased At: | Online at Performancebike.com | | Strengths: | Teflon coated cables in housings that are thinner than most. Nice ferrells for keeping muck out of your housings and wiping off whatever gets on them. | | Weaknesses: | The things on the ends--I forget what they're called--are TINY. They will not work with my LX brake levers because of this. | | Similar Products Used: | Shimano XTR brake and derailer cables--which are still the best. | | Bike Setup: | Doesn't matter, we're talking cables here. | | Bottom Line: | First of all, yes, it is worth it to pay more for prestretch, teflon lined cables and/or housings. Your bike will shift and brake better than you could have imagined, and you're unlikely to have to get your bike adjusted or adjust it yourself due to cable stretch--which is considered normal. If you pay a shop person to adjust your derailers and brakes, then get prestretch, teflon cables simply because they're essentially maintainence free and perform extremely well.
But don't buy these.
If Performance had the Shimano XTR cables, I would have bought those--been using them for years--but they only had a few choices and so I thought I'd give these a try.
I never had a chance to find out if they were really good or bad because they simply don't work with my Shimano LX brake levers.
If something doesn't work with Shimano--the standard--then it simply doesn't work and is all but guaranteed to not work on whatever componentry you have other than Shimano.
Of course, Performance will refund me for the cables, but I doubt they'll reimburse me for $10+ in shipping to me and back to them. Since the Shimano cables cost me $25, that means just ordering these ill conceived pieces of crap raised my cable costs to $35.
Performance should simply dump these cables from their offerings. Why offer something that's unlikely to be compatible with 90% of the componentry out there. | Value Rating: Overall Rating: |
Submitted by
Michael Egan
a Cross Country Rider
from Granite Bay, Kalifornia
Date Reviewed: February 25, 2007 | | Favorite Trail: | FDLT | | Duration Product Used: | Less than 1 month | | Price Paid: |
$22.00 | | Purchased At: | ebay | | Strengths: | Teflon cables, ferrules | | Weaknesses: | Housings way too short | | Similar Products Used: | Shimano | | Bike Setup: | Klein Mantra Race updated to full disc brakes, Rockshox Reba up front, Cane Creek out back. | | Bottom Line: | This review is for the standard Delta Aztec Teflon brake cables as pictured above. Some folks are reviewing the Powerlines which are a different product and which have their own review category.
As for these cables, the teflon cables are nice. I liked the way the ferrules went together. But my main issue is that they do not provide enough housing. I have disc brakes on both wheels and after doing the rear brake, I did not have enough housing for the front. I ended up having to use regular housing. Bottom line: for the money all I got were some nice Teflon cables. | Value Rating:Overall Rating: |
Submitted by
Robert
a Cross Country Rider
from Oakland
Date Reviewed: January 29, 2007 | | Favorite Trail: | any & all | | Duration Product Used: | 6 months | | Price Paid: |
$25.00 | | Purchased At: | Online | | Strengths: | Looks good. | | Weaknesses: | Pure junk | | Similar Products Used: | Jagwire ripcords & other Jagwire cable products,shimano,generic. | | Bike Setup: | a bike now set up happily & proudly with Ripcords. | | Bottom Line: | These powerlines are pure junk! I thought they might be something good, they certainly look cool.But that's what i get for going on looks...lol.
Set up was easy enough, (no,i didn't have any problem with those little interlocking things falling about or cracking the liner.)
They worked OK at first BUT after about 2 months or so they started getting ALOT of drag. I refused to replace them on the reason of what i payed for them. So after about 6/7 months i had had enough so off they came. heh , i tried working the cable off the bike & they were literally screwed upon working back & forth off the bike!
I mean with no exagerration they were nearly impossible.
Do not buy these! Total junk!
Another thing, if you need a new liner for some reason they are like $8!
These truly deserve ten real terds in the belly of the creator of these things,no joke. | | Value Rating:Overall Rating: |
Submitted by
John Kretschmann
a Racer
from Folsom, CA
Date Reviewed: August 31, 2006 | | Duration Product Used: | Less than 1 month | | Price Paid: |
$25.00 | | Purchased At: | eBay | | Strengths: | Relatively lightweight. | | Weaknesses: | Extremely difficult to work with. Horrible braking response, mushy brake feel. | | Similar Products Used: | Jagwire, OEM Shimano. | | Bike Setup: | Cyclocross bike with cantilever brakes. | | Bottom Line: | The Delta Aztec Powerline brake cables suck! It took me over an hour to set-up just one set of cables. Cutting the housing is a pain in the *#@$. It has to be cut exactly to length and you have to be careful not to loose the hollow pins that actually make-up the housing. Once I finally had it installed the brake feel was horrible. Very mushy. I double and triple checked to make sure I had everything set-up correctly. The cable set ended-up in the trash and I replaced it with Jagwire which is about 1000 times better ... easier to install and works waayy better. | | Value Rating:Overall Rating: |
Submitted by
Mark Johnston
a Weekend Warrior
from Gran Canaria
Date Reviewed: July 10, 2006 | | Favorite Trail: | makogc@hotmail.com | | Duration Product Used: | 6 months | | Price Paid: |
$30.00 | | Purchased At: | Price Point | | Strengths: | Good looking | | Weaknesses: | Totally useless, I have a sram XO rear derailleur, XTR front, Race Face Diabolous cranks on a Prophet and I never had a momment of trouble free Riding so I changed the cables to Jagwire and its as smooth as silk the difference is incredible!!! They flex far to much and crease too easy. And i thought they were expensive!! Not cheap!! | | Similar Products Used: | Shimano,Jagwire | | Bike Setup: | Cannondale prophet, marzzochi 66RCX2, marzzochi Rocco,Chris Kings Hubs, Mavic rims, Race Face Handle bars, setpost,crank,stem(all Diabolous)grips.Hope mono 6ti front and back . | | Bottom Line: | As I said above, they flex to much crease to easy. There is a lot of ghost shifting etc. I lived with it for 6 months then decided to cut my loses( I thought that I had just set them up wrong!!)But now I could kick my self its as sweet as a nut. | | Value Rating:Overall Rating: |
Submitted by
Gregg
a Racer
from Wausau, WI
Date Reviewed: May 9, 2006 | | Duration Product Used: | Less than 1 month | | Price Paid: |
$12.00 | | Purchased At: | Industry Special | | Strengths: | Complete junk. There are no strengths. | | Weaknesses: | too much cable flex for it to shift properly | | Similar Products Used: | Shimano SIS | | Bike Setup: | Trek Top Fuel 110 | | Bottom Line: | Complete junk. I've been wrenching bikes for 15 years and after installing these bike would not shift. Way too much flex in the cable for shifting. I followed directions to a tee and no go. These are complete junk and a waste of money. Its hard to give these even one chili. | | Value Rating:Overall Rating: |
Submitted by
Steve
a Weekend Warrior
from King City, Ontario, Canada
Date Reviewed: September 17, 2005 | | Favorite Trail: | Ravenshoe | | Duration Product Used: | Less than 1 month | | Price Paid: |
$35.00 | | Purchased At: | Pedal Performance | | Strengths: | None | | Weaknesses: | The cable is too frail - tends to crimp where the cable is curved and under load. The cable jacket compresses and expands to an unacceptable extent. The little nodules make a real mess if they spill out of the outer cable. | | Similar Products Used: | Avid, shimano, Gore | | Bike Setup: | Not relevant | | Bottom Line: | Expensive crap that doesn't work very well at all. For the reviewer that didn't use the teflon inner tube - that setup would be worse. | | Value Rating:Overall Rating: |
Submitted by
Tommie
a Racer
from South Africa
Date Reviewed: August 30, 2005 | | Duration Product Used: | 3 months | | Strengths: | Looked cool & high tech. Felt smooth initially. Cheaper than similar sytems. Not very difficult to install except got to watch for dropping links and fitting them the right way round | | Weaknesses: | Cannot comment on the Teflon coated inner cables alone as I have not used them before. Look as if they should perform fairly well. As regards the Powerlines. Felt smooth and looked cool initially. However gears never settled - always needed adjustment, sometimes 3 times during one ride. Brake cables were also very smooth initially, but seemed to be more spongy than my old cables when squeezed hard. After 2 or 3 races they lost their smoothness & started binding on the return. Took them off and found the inner plastic liner tube was cut in multiple places where it goes over the aluminum links. Also the links started corroding after some water got inside the outer plastic. Am giving up on them now and fitting normal OEM cables. | | Bottom Line: | Very irritating to pay more for a product that makes things worse rather than better. The makers claimed to reduce compression and thereby improve efficiency and accuracy. Mine did not do this. Sponginess was evident from the beginning and did not go away as I hoped might happen. After a few races they started binding worse than my old cables ever did and to add insult also corroded badly. The gear cables could not retain their setting either. In future I will rather stick to conventional cables for the gears & go hydraulic for the brakes. | | Value Rating:Overall Rating: |
Submitted by
Eric
a Cross Country Rider
from New Mexico, USA
Date Reviewed: July 23, 2005 | | Favorite Trail: | SST (at present) | | Duration Product Used: | Less than 1 month | | Price Paid: |
$27.00 | | Purchased At: | on-line; don't remember | | Strengths: | Good-lookin; they look like they should work better than conventional cables. | | Weaknesses: | They don't - installation is delicate and they do not noticeably improve shifting. | | Similar Products Used: | XTR, Avid flak jackets, jagwire | | Bike Setup: | Ellsworth truth w/ XTR drivetrain and shifters, etc.. | | Bottom Line: | The trouble here, in my opinion, is that the inner teflon lining is very thin; it has to be this thin to be flexible. If you accidentally kink (even just slightly!) this lining somehow, then it's all over - you need a whole new cable set. The kink gradually bunches up inside the housing, or it eventually wears through or breaks. If you manage to escape the problem of the kink, don't expect any better shifting performance or reliability than conventional cables.
It's too bad, because this product looks like it should be an improvement over the wound or braided wire type of housing. I like to support innovations, but I just can't in this case, sorry. | | Value Rating:Overall Rating: |
Submitted by
Zardoz
a Cross Country Rider
from North Dakota
Date Reviewed: June 2, 2005 | | Duration Product Used: | Tested or demo'ed only | | Price Paid: |
$20.00 | | Purchased At: | Epic sports | | Strengths: | It has a very unique design and the outer housing is very thin but if you carefully install the system right it runs smoothera than butter | | Weaknesses: | I have not yet found one | | Similar Products Used: | regular old cables | | Bike Setup: | Cannondale killer V 500, Xtr front , Lx rear | | Bottom Line: | Try it it shaves off pounds and gives a smooth ride and precise shifting | Value Rating: Overall Rating: |
Submitted by
John
a Cross Country Rider
from Joplin, MO
Date Reviewed: April 30, 2005 | | Favorite Trail: | Any Singletrack | | Duration Product Used: | 6 months | | Price Paid: |
$27.00 | | Purchased At: | Ebay | | Strengths: | Looks cool, Has nice outer casing that keeps the aluminum segments from marking the finish on the bike, Outer housing also makes installation easier than similar products that must be installed one segment at a time. | | Weaknesses: | This product doesn't live up to it's claims. The claimed improvement in shifting just isn't there; the solid aluminum segments are supposed to improve the crispness of shifting, but there was no perceptable improvement. The cables needed almost constant adjustment on the first couple of rides as the segments seated in to one another, but I also had to adjust the tension on EVERY ride after that at least once, and periodically had to screw in the adjusting barrel at the shifter, take the slack out of the cable at the derailleur and start the process over again. I only installed this cable on the rear derailleur and left the original cable on the front derailleur; I NEVER had to adjust the front derailleur during the time I had the Aztec cable installed. Also, the inner liner developed holes where the cable rubbed on it, and in one place, completely broke in two. I believe the idea of enclosing the cable is a good one, but this system does not work well at all. | | Similar Products Used: | Aztec Flak Jacket | | Bike Setup: | Schwinn Rocket 88 stage 1; XT, XTR, STI, Mavic 517's, Avid Mechanicals. | | Bottom Line: | Solid cable cover with good quality cables work better with less trouble to install and less maintenance needed. | | Value Rating:Overall Rating: |
Submitted by
J R
a Weekend Warrior
from Dallas
Date Reviewed: April 16, 2005 | | Favorite Trail: | Anything with a downhill | | Duration Product Used: | Less than 1 month | | Price Paid: |
$35.00 | | Strengths: | Looks, Light weight, completely sealed, shifting | | Weaknesses: | Tedious time consuming installation, easy to lose links, not enough "housing" for some frames | | Similar Products Used: | Gore Tex Ride On, Avid Flak Jacket, Avid Full Metal Jacket, Teflon cables, Regular cables, regular housing, I've tried em all | | Bike Setup: | Intense 5.5, Marzocchi fork, Sram Shifters + Derailleurs, | | Bottom Line: | This system looks cool and it does its job. It shifts well and best of all it is completely sealed! Dirt can't get in, because first unlike Nokon or IRD's version where the aluminum housing links are exposed, this has a plastic sheath that covers it. Inside, there is a plastic liner that slides inside the aluminum links that the teflon cables slide through, this runs the entire length of the bike frame, from the shifters to as close to the derailleurs as you want.
Differences from the Nokon and IRD cables are 1) this housing has separate links and are not interconnected. Without the housing sheath, these links will scatter like marbles. 2) When Nokon and IRD cables get dirty, they will creak like a door hinge. Every turn of the bar or compression of the fork you will hear an annoying creak or squeak. Since this is protected I don't anticipate it to be a problem, especially since the links are not hinged and connected. 3) it is sealed somewhat like Avid's Flak Jacket. The main difference is that on Avid's system, the protective sheath for the cable only extends between the cable stops on the frame. Inside the housing there is no protective sheath. With this one the housing goes from the shifter all the way to the end near the derailleurs.
The shifting is crisp, quick, and so far no problems. It does what it says and I love it.
Potential problems, on some frames the housing included may be insufficient to span the whole bike. I have a small frame, but I had enough housing left over.
BE EXTREMELY CAREFUL when measuring the housing from your old frame. CHECK AND RECHECK the length you need before cutting the Aztec Housing. Chances are you will have enough, but if you screw up, you may not have enough to finish the bike. SO either get someone with experience to install these for you, or do it yourself and be very diligent in measuring. They provide you with just enough of what you need and little to no excess cable. Also, those little buggers will get everywhere if you drop the cable, or leave one end open. All those tiny links will slide right out if you don't place a ferrule or end cap on the housing, so always make sure it has one for both ends when installing, or immediately after you cut the housing.
You may need to add a link or two to the housing since the links will compress a little after initial placing in the frame. If you see the links slide back and forth inside the housing when shifting, then add a link to the section that needs it. The whole point is to have as little compression as possible and any sliding you see negates that.
Also, when sliding the inner sheath inside the links, be very careful not to bend it, since it will cause kinking in the line. I had a devil of a time trying to slide it through without doing so, and on a couple of sections it was impossible to slide it in without kinking at least one part. Its fine though, because once the inner sheath is in, the cable will slide freely, whether there is a kink or not. So don't worry about it, just be careful.
So basically to sum it up, the shifting is amazing, is pretty well sealed, and is a decent value. IT shifts great when dry, and when you ride in mud and grit, or ride in rain or wet conditions, the water will keep out and you won't have to worry about crap getting in your shifting lines. I'd think this would be ideal for cyclocrossers or if you ride in wet conditions. 5 Peppers! | Value Rating:Overall Rating: |
Submitted by
russ eckert
a Weekend Warrior
from womelsdorf,pa,usa
Date Reviewed: February 3, 2005 | | Favorite Trail: | bluemarsh lake | | Duration Product Used: | Less than 1 month | | Price Paid: |
$48.00 | | Purchased At: | skyline bikes | | Strengths: | easy install ran disc f. v-brake r. full coverage also shift cables shifts better than new awsume brake power | | Weaknesses: | none so far | | Similar Products Used: | stock & shimano | | Bike Setup: | raleigh m8oo x/t drive line l/x v. brake on rear avid cable disc up front | | Bottom Line: | love the feal the look the power everyone should have a set of these | Value Rating: Overall Rating: |
Submitted by
Mike
a Weekend Warrior
from Vienna
Date Reviewed: December 4, 2004 | | Favorite Trail: | Many | | Duration Product Used: | Less than 1 month | | Price Paid: |
$20.00 | | Purchased At: | Performance | | Strengths: | Easy to install, shifts accurately. | | Weaknesses: | None | | Similar Products Used: | Shimano | | Bike Setup: | Cannondale MTB, Shimano parts | | Bottom Line: | The teflon cables were easy to intall. The housing was easy to cut without using the Dremmel cutting tool (as recommended in the instruction). I just used a Park cable and housing cutter. I placed a short piece of old cable wire within the housing before applying the cutter, the old cable prevented the inner sleeve from collapsing under the cutting force; then I fished the new cable through to push the old cable out, and used a sharp pointed object to round out the inner sleever. That was it, just a couple of minutes. The cables come with a set of special ferrules that help to seal the housing and protect the inside. It's a pretty good design. The shifing now has improved, it requires less effort, and the shifting is precise. I used this to replace my old Shimano stock SIS cables. | | Value Rating:Overall Rating: |
Submitted by
Damien
a Weekend Warrior
from Seattle, WA, USA
Date Reviewed: October 18, 2004 | | Favorite Trail: | Preston RR | | Duration Product Used: | Tested or demo'ed only | | Price Paid: |
$40.00 | | Purchased At: | Price Point | | Strengths: | Looks Cool. | | Weaknesses: | It is a weak product. The cable was not long enough for both sets. the exterior housing crinkled while winding around for the rear der. | | Similar Products Used: | Gore-Tex. | | Bike Setup: | Uzzi-SL -Hope, 5 Element, XTR, Bomber FR-SL, King, Tompson, Answer. | | Bottom Line: | Poor product. Not enough product to complete project. I trashed them and will be buying something new today. | | Value Rating:Overall Rating: |
Submitted by
Chris
a Cross Country Rider
from Rota, Spain
Date Reviewed: July 20, 2004 | | Duration Product Used: | Less than 1 month | | Price Paid: |
$20.00 | | Purchased At: | Performance | | Strengths: | A little more compressionless than the my stock cables. | | Weaknesses: | The cable housing supplied is too short!! | | Bike Setup: | IBEX Ignition-2, mostly stock, w/Cane-Creek AD-5 rear shock. | | Bottom Line: | Well, I have mechanical disk brakes, and wanted more braking power, especially in front. These Aztec cables are advertised as compressionless, and they do seem to be better than the stock cables in that department, but they are still a little stretchy. Some improvement, but not as much as I expected. Problem - My rear brake cable is fully covered, and the housing supplied by Aztec is way too short to do front and rear disks with full coverage by the housing. Nothing in their advertising, on their web site, packaging, or listing on Performance's web site says anything about the fact that the amount of housing supplied is insufficient for full coverage. I contacted the company, and they offered to SELL me more cable housing, but hell, I already bought the package that's supposed to be for front AND rear. So for my 20 bucks I got new cables for my front brakes. Be aware that the cable housing supplied is just barely going to cover you if you have naked cable on your top tube, and if you have disk brakes, even then I'm not sure. If your rear cable is fully covered, GO ELSEWHERE! | | Value Rating:Overall Rating: |
| |
|
Photo Caption Contest
(sponsored by Maxxis)
|
Enter here
|
|
|
$ 26.00
