At 6:16 PM -0400 4/15/08, EPL wrote:
>Does rear brake cable housing held along the tope tube by
>two braze-on stops (with bare cable in the central portion)
>require -- on its ends inside the braze-ons -- a ferrule
>for optimum performance?
>
>I ask because said braze-ons are too tight for the ferrules
>I've found, including various OD stepped-down ferrules.
>
>In other words, is there a clear performance downside to
>going ferrule-less with traditional brakes and old
>Campy-style housing?
An article in Bicycle Quarterly once argued that the slip-on ferrules are superfluous. After all, there is a ferrule already brazed onto your frame. Slipping a ferrule inside the ferrule doesn't do any harm, but there is no benefit, either. (The exception is when there is a barrel adjuster, and the smooth slip-on ferrule allows the adjuster to turn more easily than if it was turning against the rougher cable housing.)
Most French high-end bikes did not have superfluous ferrules... and your bike obviously was designed by somebody who also did not believe in superfluous parts, either.
However many ferrules you use, make sure your cable housing is cut cleanly, and file or grind it so that it is more or less square at the end. That provides a good seat, which removes the sponginess that you get if there is flex at the housing/braze-on interface.
Jan Heine
Editor
Bicycle Quarterly
140 Lakeside Ave #C
Seattle WA 98122
http://www.bikequarterly.com