Seems Pretty Slick

Remember Gore Ride On?

A friend of mine and I were reminiscing the other day about cables for bicycle brakes and derailleurs. I know.........we're such nerds! Anyway.....

The conversation was about the old R.L. Gore company's "Ride On" sealed cable system. It was an ingenious development that took a simple cable for a bicycle, and ran it inside a sheath from front to back, essentially sealing out the elements and making the cable retain its slick, smooth operation far past that of ordinary bicycle cables and housings. This despite the many "open" cable runs that most road and mountain bikes have employed for decades.

The system worked so well that some riders were reporting that their cables were friction free and operating well past a decade of continuous usage. That's hard to imagine, and let's face it- not a good business model. I mean, how do you continue to sell cables and housings if people are using the same set they bought from you for ten plus years! Then too, the competition probably wasn't too chuffed about selling against that track record either. Or at least, one wouldn't think so.

So, why hasn't this product taken over the marketplace? Well, the story begins with a 2012 CPSC recall on R.L. Gore cables due to a few reports of Campagnolo brake cable ends breaking off, causing crashes. Okay....that's a blow to any company, but it doesn't necessarily signal the end. However; this "Bike Radar" story, published in August of 2012, indicated that, " the cables and housing proved too small of an effort to make it worthwhile". SRAM was claiming that they would be offering it through their channels, but a quick search revealed only some older sets available on e-bay and through some Amazon sellers. Probably old, NOS stuff.

Jagwire's  Elite Sealed Kit

So, that was it? No, not exactly. With a little easy digging, one could find out that the R.L.Gore cables were produced in Asia by Jagwire, a company that has a huge OE business with several bicycle brands, and was branching out to sell their own branded product in the aftermarket. Jagwire announced in July of 2013 that they were introducing a "fully sealed system" . In this "Bicycle Retailer and Industry News" article, Jagwire states through a spokesperson that Jagwire's new cables were a , "similar system to Gore in that it's sealed, but there are changes to improve performance and durability." 

Well, I for one was not aware that this evolution, and brand change, had happened. It would seem that due to the past popularity of the Gore Ride On system, that one would think that riders would be searching out a replacement, but for whatever reason, this seems to be an under the radar cable system. I'm sure I'll get comments regarding these being in use out there, which is great, but I'll be honest, I would have thought this would be a bigger deal than it is.

Maybe Di2 has supplanted that buzz......