The Golden Boy 

Has anyone done a direct comparison between the Teflon coated Jagwire Road Pro shift/brake cables/housing and the Yokozuna Reaction cables/housing on a C&V bike?

I've been using the Jagwire cables for a long time- and really dig the Teflon coated cables... do they REALLY make a difference? I don't know- I have actually swapped out regular stainless cables for the Teflon coated ones (but kept the same housing)- I can't say that I really noticed a difference.

I really dig the old Jagwire "Titanium" colored braided housing- I think it looks awesome and have used it on several bikes; but it seems that Jagwire is no longer making the Road Pro/Racer cable kit with the "Titanium" housing.

In the past, I've considered the Yokozuna housing- I think it looks neat, I've read that lots of people love the performance, but I've read many people have had trouble getting the housing to bend where you need it to bend- it's very very stiff housing. Additionally, I've read/seen pix of rust developing inside the housing...

Anyone?

SamSpade1941 

I have both on bikes and honestly I can't tell a difference . On my SOMA build I am using Ultegra cables instead of Jagwire Road Pro cables but I got the cable set at a really good price. I want to see how the Ultegra level cables compare to the Jagwire

ryansu 

+1 on Jagwire and I too would like to know if they compare to Yokozuna. I am bummed I can't find any gold braided Jagwire housing (Racer and Pro Road) as I used that on a number of bikes but it seems no where to be found currently, I like the Ice Grey too and it works with lots of frame colors. I am still using the same red shift housing I bought 4 bike builds ago because DT shifter bikes use so little shift housing .

Kuromori

There's not that much difference between the PTFE lined housings except for compressionless brake housing which is now somewhat common due to mechanical disc brakes. Yokozuna is very good housing, but compressionless brake housing isn't rare or special anymore. If cost is ever a consideration, skip it. The difference is even less when you aren't routing housing under bar tape. There's some generic braided stuff floating around now, the only problem I had was that it was a very tight fit in a brake ferrule and the ferrules had to be flared with a phillips screwdriver to prevent the plastic sheathing from being peeled off.

RobbieTunes 

The Jagwire "braided" look is a fatter housing, as Kuromori says above. I shaved the ends of the housing to fit in ferrules at times.

Appears to be a move by Jagwire from Teflon to slick stainless, as far as widespread availability. I prefer the Teflon. For housing, stiff is good, but the tight turns on modern bars with bar-routed cabling is a problem.

Shops tell me the Yokozuna is better, but I don't know. A common trick at some tri-shops used to be to run lower end SRAM gear but higher end Gore cables/housing, which improves the shifting of Apex up a level or two. That's probably true across the brands of others, as well. Making it easier to shift = easier shifts.

Ease of shifting is one reason people are starting to hoard 10sp 6600 and 7800, and even 5600. "Free" routing of shift cables may not be any better, but given the variables involved in 6700, 6800, 7900 and 9000 and up, there are simply less opportunities for problems due to cable issues.

The Golden Boy 

Interesting!

I’ve read of people preferring 6600 brifters over 7800 because of the cable routing.

I’m running 10 speed 7700/7800 derailleurs with the Jagwire cables and housing with the re-engineered Command Shifters - I really dig the shifting.

Andy_K 

My experience has been that the biggest difference the Teflon coating makes is that it eventually starts rubbing off and gums up the housing.

Even with indexed shifting I'm happy enough with Jagwire that I'm not tempted to try anything more expensive. The compressionless brake housing definitely makes a noticeable difference though. It got a lot of promotion as a way to improve mechanical disc brakes, but I think the same thing that makes it better in that case also makes it better for rim brakes. The only difference is that with rim brakes people have always been used to some power loss due to cable compression. I suspect there are even people who prefer the feel of the brakes with that loss. But with mechanical disc brakes people were comparing them to hydraulic disc brakes which have no such loss.

The Golden Boy 

Maybe it's because I haven't used stuff that's "better" than the Road Pro stuff- but I look at that being premium stuff. Although the point is that these premium cables work really well- the decision beyond this is aesthetic. Jagwire's braided cables are the best looking cables. IMO- the difference between Jagwire's "Titanium" and "Ice Gray" is not insignificant.

A few years ago, I attempted to buy Jagwire housing in bulk off eBay- and while it may have been legitimate Jagwire stuff- it wasn't the same quality as the Road Pro cable/housing kits.

Expand this pic of my 620- the brake cables are Jagwire Ice Gray and the shift cables coming out from the tape are Jagwire Titanium:


1985 Trek 620 by Dave The Golden Boy, on Flickr

A couple pix of two other of my bikes with the Titanium housing...


IMG_0220 by Dave The Golden Boy, on Flickr


1990 Miyata 1000LT by Dave The Golden Boy, on Flickr



While I believe the Yokozuna housing would look sweet- I don't know that it's worth x2+ the price- but in the absence of the Jagwire stuff (or more specifically, the premium quality Jagwire braided housing)- it seems like one of the only players in that game. And, again, it would be more about aesthetics than performance.

Kuromori

Well the Ice Gray isn't the braided stuff with clear outer, so I wouldn't expect it to look the same as braided stuff. I don't know if you're saying the braided stuff seems nicer than the non-braided stuff, or what housing you're comparing to what, but comparing like with like (lined to lined, braided to braided, compressionless to compressionless, regular to regular) there is very little difference in actual use between the OEM stuff and the stuff in the kit. The only thing you have to be careful about if that sometimes the OEM bulk housings are unlubricated, and the kit versions have a little bit of grease injected into them.

As far as teflon coated inners go, it comes down to whether or not the coating peels off and starts clogging things. If you get clogging, especially inside integrated shifters, the performance is worse than uncoated. There's a difference between slick and old galvanized cables, but I don't think that was being asked.

mixteup

That stuff you're calling "Titanium" housing, looks just like the braided cable housing from Velo Orange -
I've used it and it's nice, but very stiff :

https://velo-orange.com/collections/...ake-cable-kits

The Golden Boy 

The Velo Orange stuff is tinted a much lighter shade of silver.

The Golden Boy 

The "titanium" tinted stuff is prettier.

I asked if anyone compared the Jagwire stuff to the Yokozuna stuff.

Kuromori

I'm having a hard time understanding what kind of input you're looking for. You don't seem to like the idea of non-Jagwire braided stuff that looks the part, even if it is tinted titanium. Jagwire is not an option because they don't make it in braided titanium color anymore and you don't like the available colors. So offbrands are out, Jagwire is out, that only leaves Yokozuna? It seems like you want someone to tell you Yokozuna is twice as good as Jagwire since it's the only thing you're willing to actually buy?

RobbieTunes 

I'm with you. To date, I've not had a "system" as light, precise, and "pick it an flick it" as 7700's. My 9000 and 9100 are close, but are not getting a cigar. I ran into a small group of experienced (fast) riders in NC that were all hoarding 6600 and 7800. Their feelings re: along-the-bar shift cable routing could be summed up as "despicable." They really despised it, to the point of initiating conversation (ok, arguments) with other riders. I think they did this for fun, but they were dead serious about their preferences.

The Golden Boy 

I didn't think this was a particularly difficult question- or something that was requiring critical analytical skills. I simply asked if someone here has used both the Jagwire Racer/Road Pro braided cables AND the Yokozuna Reaction cables.

If you had used both sets of cables- did you like them?

Did you have any issues with the housing being TOO stiff, or did you have a problem with rust forming inside the housing?

Here's the original post.

Additionally, I stated that I understand both cable and housing sets will perform excellently- and beyond fit issues (which I touched on and others had mentioned)- the primary difference is aesthetic.

While I did specifically ask about a comparison between Jagwire and Yokozuna- I am open to other brands that are of similar quality and also look as nice. The Velo Orange housing is very nice- it doesn't have the look I'm looking for. Perhaps I missed it- but I don't see any other options mentioned for the titanium colored housing mentioned. You mentioned "generic braided stuff" with no other information, Robbie mentioned Gore- which I guess isn't making housing/cable anymore... (as a data point- I sent Robbie the titanium brake housing that didn't work with my non-aero levers). In all honesty, I vastly prefer the look of the Jagwire braided housing to the Yokozuna Reaction housing, plus I really don't want to spend that kind of bank on housing, and I don't want to have rust forming inside the housing. So, no, I don't want someone to say that the "Yokozuna is twice as good as Jagwire." I would like to have several data points of people saying "I have used both and I'm glad I put out the extra money for an excellent product that works great and looks cool" or "I have used both and regret that I wasted the money on overpriced garbage that doesn't fit my bike."

I don't know if you're reading far more into this than there is to read... I am genuinely thankful for people suggesting things that I hadn't thought of. Whenever I think of the VO housing- I think of @southpawboston's old Voyageur- there are not many classier builds out there- so thank you to @mixteup. I'm also thankful to @SamSpade1941, @ryansu and @Andy_K for relating their experiences. I'm also glad you provided input as to the performance of the cables- but, again, at this level- the performance of the cables is a given- the point is 'are you happy with it for whatever reason.'

fietsbob

QBP is US distributors of Jagwire in the US , from Taiwan

Merry Sales Imports, of So SF is who brings in Yokozuna* , Japan.


* Title of the master Sumo champion of Japan is the Yokozuna.






...

The Golden Boy 

When I was in the process of collecting parts for my Trek 720 rebuild- I recall discussion about how people preferred 6600 shifters to the 7800 shifters- and around this time a set of 6603 shifters popped up for a great price and I snagged them. I ultimately went with Command Shifters- and the Ultegra stuff sits in a box for a *someday* project. It wasn't something I particularly researched- and kind of jumped the gun on- but kind of lost interest in pursuing it.

The Golden Boy 

Several years ago, I ended up with Ultegra gray housing on my Trek 400 Elance- for a while it was my most ridden bike- but the housing started cracking/splitting by the DT cable stops. I don't know if it was my inexperience running the cables/housing, or if it was a bad batch of housing or whatever... I replaced it with gray Jagwire.

Kuromori

When I say generic braided stuff, it's stuff that pops up on amazon/ebay/aliexpress when you search for braided housing. It's well, generic, and like they oft do on those sites, vendors come and go, stocks wax and wane, but you can usually find it by searching for "braided housing" being sold by someone. It's the nature of these things being sold from China coming out of some factory with middlemen who want to use their own brand as the brand name, know the Chinese brand has no brand recognition, or want to be purposefully opaque even though it comes from the same Taobao dropshipper. I'm really not trying to be patronizing, but are you expecting me to google it for you?

I guarantee something will pop up on each of those sites if you search braided housing, probably unbranded or with a fly-by-night Asian brand, probably with a titanium tinted option, maybe even some OEM Jagwire, which you don't like because I'm guessing you didn't lubricate the cables and the OEM stuff is often the non-SL/non-pre-lubed version. It's very similar to Jagwire CEX braided and not prelubed like Jagwire SL versions. You probably won't be able to tell the difference without a side by side comparison. I don't know how you got Ice Gray Jagwire housing from that.

There's really not much to add to what you already knew about Yokozuna except that like every premium cycling product, there's diminishing returns. It's like asking if I like Dura-Ace. Sure I do, but it's expensive and doesn't really do anything 105 doesn't. And yes, Yokozuna has more rust issues than other because there's no cosmetic layer to hide the rust and the parallel strands wick water more than spiral wound, but how much cables rust depends on environment and how much you sweat on cables. No one can say if you'll have costmetic rust problems with it.

The Golden Boy 

What is your purpose in this post?

Why did you quote me in the other replies and not this one?

Why are you expecting me to google **** that you seem to know about?

'Not being patronizing.' My ass.

Kuromori

I didn't quote you in any of my posts in this thread, like many of your other replies, I really have no idea what you're going on about. I figured you would know how to search the common ecommerce sites. I mean if you wanted me to clarify what or where I saw this generic stuff, you could have just asked, although my answer would have pretty much been the same "search for 'braided housing' on amazon/ebay/aliexpress and it will pop up."

I offered my opinions on Yokozuna, Jagwire, and the generic stuff I've used, but apparently you take great offense to it.

SurferRosa

jagwire vs yokozuna

It sucked. Nothing like the original. Horrible acting, and the animation was second rate. Don't go see it. Two thumbs down.