Bill Bove
03-10-2005, 06:15 PM
I bit the bullet and bought a set of the Power Cordz that were discussed here in an earlier post.
First off these puppies are exspensive. 34.99 for each pair of brake and derailer cables. Installation went as easy as any other cable with the exception that once you clamp them you can't unclamp them for adjustments but that is covered quite clearly in the instructions. Secondly, the brake cables are not Campy compatible. The heads are too wide to fit into the holder on a Campy brake lever. You can either not use them or use a second set of derailer cables in the brakes. I've used stainless der. cables for brakes before and never had any problem but I had already paid for these so I used them anyway with the heads not being completely seated, they'll either stay that way or they'll seat themselves under braking pressure and I'll have to pull the cables tighter. I'm riding on the flats so it won't be a big deal if I lose some braking power for a short time. How do they feel? I only rode them home a mile and a half tonight, I'll ride them for real in the morning and on Saturday mornings World Championships of A1A but so far they don't feel any different than any other cable, maybe a little softer. We'll see. Since I had to retape the bars anyway I used the new fi'zi:k bar gel, another 29.99 and I just cannot bring myself to ride black handlebar tape so I only used the gel itself with Cinelli cork on top, another 14.99. All in all a pretty exspensive experiment but I do get my stuff at wholesale and I got the Power Cordz at an even better "test dummy" price I can take the chance so that I can report back to you, my forum friends.
First off these puppies are exspensive. 34.99 for each pair of brake and derailer cables. Installation went as easy as any other cable with the exception that once you clamp them you can't unclamp them for adjustments but that is covered quite clearly in the instructions. Secondly, the brake cables are not Campy compatible. The heads are too wide to fit into the holder on a Campy brake lever. You can either not use them or use a second set of derailer cables in the brakes. I've used stainless der. cables for brakes before and never had any problem but I had already paid for these so I used them anyway with the heads not being completely seated, they'll either stay that way or they'll seat themselves under braking pressure and I'll have to pull the cables tighter. I'm riding on the flats so it won't be a big deal if I lose some braking power for a short time. How do they feel? I only rode them home a mile and a half tonight, I'll ride them for real in the morning and on Saturday mornings World Championships of A1A but so far they don't feel any different than any other cable, maybe a little softer. We'll see. Since I had to retape the bars anyway I used the new fi'zi:k bar gel, another 29.99 and I just cannot bring myself to ride black handlebar tape so I only used the gel itself with Cinelli cork on top, another 14.99. All in all a pretty exspensive experiment but I do get my stuff at wholesale and I got the Power Cordz at an even better "test dummy" price I can take the chance so that I can report back to you, my forum friends.