Vertebrae Cable System

[madcow]

I've had a set of Vertebrae cable housing for a little while now and have been waiting for a new bike in order to give it a try. We'll my new frame got here recently and that gave me a good excuse to give it a run.

Vertebrae, is a nokon-like cable system, in that it's segmented. Beyond that they don't share too many similarities. The Vertebrae is a ceramic based pearl which after being built to length is heat shrunk inside a casing.

It is possible to order it in prebuilt lengths, but in order to really get a feel for it, I opted for a do it yourself kit.

Part 1. Price. Yes, it's a little expensive, a full kit is 220 Euros. At todays exchange rate that's $314. That's about twice the price of standard aluminum nokon, though less than the price of carbon nokon.

Part 2. Weight. To try and show the differences here are a few weights. The piece weights are for a 6.5cm piece of housing.
Vertebrae: 3.6grams
Shimano Brake: 4.1grams
Shimano Shift: 2.7grams
Nokon: 2.6grams
Now here the weights for complete housings for my bike. This does not include the cables, only the housings.
Vertebrae: 134grams
Shimano: 124grams
Nokon: 111grams

Part 3. Installation. This is very time consuming, but not difficult. It does require some special tools such as a heat gun. Basically it setsup a bit like Nokon but then an outer sleeve is put over it and heat shrunk to it. This makes shortening or lengthening time consuming. So basically you take a piece of liner, put the pearls on it until you have just the right length, then add some ferrules and an outer sleeve then add some heat to shrink it. You have to keep the pearls from spreading until the casing is heat shrunk. On the EE brakes the outer casing could not be left in place where the housing slips into the barrel, nor did a ferrule fit here. But it doesn't seem as though it will be a problem.

Part 4. Aesthetics. I got both the clear and white outer liners, but ended up going with the clear. It's a really good look. One note for those that may consider the clear. The ceramic pieces of housing are very rough and dirt/grease sticks to them very well. So make sure your hands are really clean before handling them. Heat shrink tubes are available in clear, black, white, red, orange, yellow, blue, purple and brown. Unlike anodized pieces this outer sleeve matches painted frames better, and comes in a wider range of colors. My clear set, really looks the part. It would be at home on any high end bike.

Part 5. Performance. I must admit I did have some preconceived notions coming into this. I expected to be able to report no real difference from Nokon. To my surprise I was wrong. The performance increase seems to be really quite noticeable. Normally Sram red front derailleurs are not the best performing mechs. Even without a barrel adjuster for the front mech, I was able to get it to work very well, quite possibly the best I've ever seen from a Red front. The brakes were incredibly smooth and modulated flawlessly. This housing could be the best complimentary piece to the EE brakes. Making a phenomenal brake, even better. All of this improvement is based on a comparison to the Yokozuna housing, which is what was previously being used by me. So as a nice surprise, I did see a very noticeable improvement.

In the end I am very impressed with this system. Yes, as I said earlier, it is a bit expensive in the U.S. but part of that is due to the current exchange rate. The installation takes a long time, but the result is a set that looks fantastic and works even better.

[Mario Jr.]

Wow, nice. Any guesses as to why it seem to work better than Nokon? In my mind that should be un-compressable too?

[slyboots]

I don't have a heat gun, so I used a lighter (zippo) to install mine. It worked just fine.

[synchronicity]

Wow, nice. Any guesses as to why it seem to work better than Nokon? In my mind that should be un-compressable too?

Because the ceramic we use is about 5x stiffer than aluminium. Vertebrae also have a larger surface area than other segmented housing.