Cables - which brands are good?

Looking for some new road brake/gear cables (inner and outer). Seems there are a lot of different options. Shimano's own are pretty expensive. Are the cheaper options by Clarks, Pro-Race etc any good? Or is it a false economy?

I have used transfil cables for a few years now and they are as good as Shimano

Tester approves transfil

ive found for front brakes its pretty irrelevant since the distance between calipers and levers are so small. ive used cheap ass stuff for front brakes and its worked perfectly for ages.

rear brakes its more of a concern - outer cable makes the most difference imo

I've got jagwire for the first time and i am impressed!

jagwire is great comes in good matchy matchy colours too. was utterly stumped with crazy amount of ferrules and bits tho!

With Shimano stuff, it doesn't really matter. With campag, it's best to buy their own kit as they have weird sizes. The installation will make much more difference than the cables or outers will in my experience. If it's just brake cables, neither will make much difference. Gears are a bit more fiddly, especially Campag 10 speed.

Yokozuna

#pimpin'

Had to Google that, but if it includes cables AND outers, it's cheaper than Campag or genuine Shimano (I think). Might be worth a look, if you worry about having the very best. I'm sure there's a trade off somehere - maybe reliability, but I have no idea!

Shimano is perfectly fine. The rest is just cock message.

Good cables do make a difference, especially to braking.

Clarks etc are fine for a pub bike, but I'm happy to spend the money on bikes that get harder use.

In the latter case, I've been using Transfil for some years; in the former I spend £3-odd in Wilko.

I changed over to Jagwire cables on the road bike and did notice a slightly better 'feel' under heavy braking compared with the tired Clarks I was using previously. Two years on and the Jagwire cables (both inners and outers) are performing well.

I think for the small price premium they were worth it but, as others have said, Clarks et al are fine for a beater/rat/pub bike.

Clarkes make a few high end options, think they are called zero?????
Shimano latest offering 5800/6800/7900 etc cables are amazing, hence why they cost £30 a set.
Yokahunza are spoken of highly, pricey, but if you have a bike with less than perfect cable routing( and 10/11 spd) then decent cables are a must.

Di2 + hydraulic = bye bye cables

hello batteries, and expensive/messy bleed services?

You scared of batteries? Magura bleed kit is £20 - how often do they need bleeding?

Any old shit for the commuter, pub and mtbs.

These for Sunday best:
http://www.alligatorcables.com/i_link.html
Lightest around, sealed from shifter to mech, lovely feel (with Sram). Bit spendy though.

I'm slightly trolling.

I still maintain that electronic gearing should remains the preserve of the sundaybest/high end race machines. I for one hope the trickledown stops at Ultegra.

Why though? Winter training bikes are actually the ones most able to benefit from the removal of cables.

A little birdie told me that 105 was getting Di2 at the end of the year as Shimano push to make it available to the everyman.

Lifeline (through wiggle) are pretty good; their pro range cableset for gears and brakes is under £30 and compressionless. They are on all my bikes except of course the Di2 bike.

Dredge.....

I've just replaced the brake cables on my dad-o-commuto-cross biek with Shimano cables. I've got Tektro 520 levers to Avid V-brakes. Annoyingly the cable routing on the front brake is so tight against the bars that it makes the brake action very sticky. I've tried a number of different ways of running the cable but nothing seems to work. It's fine until I tape the cable to the bars and then it all goes to shit.

What do people recommend for tight radius cable runs that will still allow for smooth cable movement - Nokon? Jagwire? Something else? Throw bike into volcano and buy new bike?

So — cables for retro campag groupsets. Talk to me.

I have an 80s Campag Athena gruppo with DT shifters. Looks like the cables don't exit the brake levers from the tops, but instead from under the hoods.

As much as I'd love some NOS campag original cables and housings, I don't think it's worth it.

Ideally I'd like white outers. Anyone know any good and reasonably priced options out there? Have googled but not had much joy.

gruppo

Stop this right now.

Anyway, you don't need NOS cables, why don't you go for a current, full set? £30 in white on Ebay. They're very high quality, so worth the expense.

Forgive me — I thought it was OK to use this term when referring to a set of components from Italy. Won't do it again.

Thanks for the advice. Something like these will do the trick then?

You need to use the term campy gruppo, then it is fine.