Solidworks capable of flexible cable?

Can Solidworks create and simulate forces on a flexible cable/rope?

It would be quite usefull when designing a winch, bicycle brakes/gear shifter, hoisting system, etc.

I use Autodesk Inventor Pro 2009 and it seems it lacks this ability.

i believe you are in the same boat. They have no problem simulating a flexible cable but im not sure about using it as part of a mechanical assembly to transmit forces. Ill do some digging in my help files tomorrow at work(dont have SW at home).

i have same problem, i need some simple cable that connects 2 sliders and passes trough a smaal reel or something. basicly want to make one slider to move the other via cable.

In the motion simulation there is an action/reaction force but i havent played with this much. There are ways you can apply forces to each object to have them move but at this time i dont know if there is a way to transmit. But if you have a properly constrained assembly where the rope has some relations with the pulley and the sliders i imagine it would move it all. Again i dont know this for sure.

Why would you have a flexible rope in a calculation of a winch etc. This would make the calculation extremely heavy. This is even in Ansys an impossible option. Just make an estimation about which load case would be the most extreme and calculate that load case. I've worked on a side loader arm for quite a while and there were only 10 of endlessly positions interesting enough to calculate. So don't make it difficult for yourselve, estimate and calculate.