Bowden cable
nounEtymology Uncertain; its invention is popularly attributed to Sir Frank Bowden, but also associated with Ernest Monnington Bowden.
1
A flexible cable used to transmit mechanical force by the movement of an inner cable (most commonly of steel) relative to a hollow outer housing.
- Unfortunately, designers apparently forgot that the laws of sliding friction apply inside a Bowden cable just as they do at braking surfaces. The force transmitted by the inner cable is continuously reduced, particularly around bends, according to the formula […].2004, David Gordon Wilson, Bicycling Science, third edition, MIT Press, →ISBN, page 253: