# When do you replace shifter cable housing?



## redlude97 (Jun 29, 2010)

So the r.o.t. I have always heard for replacing shifter housing that isn't physically damaged is when the plastic out cover has pulled away from inner cables a significant amount. What I don't know really, is how much "significant" is. Also if the cables are long enough can you just trim the ends off a small amount and reuse?


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## Daren (Jul 25, 2008)

I replace mine every March, right before racing starts and, hopefully, after most of the spring training in the rain.


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## redlude97 (Jun 29, 2010)

Do you check the cable ends? How far back has the plastic cover pulled back from the wires?


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## cxwrench (Nov 9, 2004)

replace the housing when you replace the cables. the liner inside the housing is where the wear takes place. if you ride 'a lot' then twice a year is good. not so much, once a year.


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## froze (Sep 15, 2002)

If your not racing then why twice a year? I ride about 5,000 miles a year, not a lot, but average, I haven't replaced a cable or it's housing in 3 years and they still work fine. Maybe it's because I don't shift or brake so I replace my shoes instead! 

Seriously, why so often? It's a waste of money. Their not all the expensive but twice a year along with other stuff will nickle and dime you to death. If you maintain the cable with a dab of grease at the entrance of the cable into the housing. Here's a video on how to maintain the cables, if you do this as often as you lube your chain there's no reason the cables can't last 10 years or more! see: How to Lubricate Brake and Shift Cables - Bicycle Tutor Video

I have bikes that the cables are over 15 years old and work just fine and look just fine. If it's still smoothly working and are intact then don't waste your money, maintain them instead.


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## cxwrench (Nov 9, 2004)

froze said:


> If your not racing then why twice a year? I ride about 5,000 miles a year, not a lot, but average, I haven't replaced a cable or it's housing in 3 years and they still work fine. Maybe it's because I don't shift or brake so I replace my shoes instead!
> 
> Seriously, why so often? It's a waste of money. *They're* not all the expensive but twice a year along with other stuff will nickle and dime you to death. If you maintain the cable with a dab of grease at the entrance of the cable into the housing. Here's a video on how to maintain the cables, if you do this as often as you lube your chain there's no reason the cables can't last 10 years or more! see: How to Lubricate Brake and Shift Cables - Bicycle Tutor Video
> 
> I have bikes that the cables are over 15 years old and work just fine and look just fine. If it's still smoothly working and are intact then don't waste your money, maintain them instead.


fixed that for you. and you don't need to tell me how to maintain cables and housing. i've got just a bit of experience w/ that. if you think cables can last 10 years, i'm not even going to waste my time setting you straight.


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## Andrea138 (Mar 10, 2008)

cxwrench said:


> fixed that for you. and you don't need to tell me how to maintain cables and housing. i've got just a bit of experience w/ that. if you think cables can last 10 years, i'm not even going to waste my time setting you straight.


You missed the first "your," an "it's," and a few commas, n00bsauce.


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## cxwrench (Nov 9, 2004)

Andrea138 said:


> You missed the first "your," an "it's," and a few commas, n00bsauce.


dammit dammit dammit...you ALWAYS get me!


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## froze (Sep 15, 2002)

cxwrench said:


> fixed that for you. and you don't need to tell me how to maintain cables and housing. i've got just a bit of experience w/ that. if you think cables can last 10 years, i'm not even going to waste my time setting you straight.


Your right, they don't last that long, I have no clue about cables after 40+ years of riding, I'm just an idiot riding on time bombs waiting for one to break so I can die.

Wait let me rephrase that; Yous writ, thes dant las tat long. I gots no klue abots kables afturd 4o yars of reddin, Is jus an idot reddin on time bombs waiten fer one to brak so Is can dye.


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## cxwrench (Nov 9, 2004)

look, i know lots of people that 'ride' a ton. that doesn't mean they know jack about how things work or how they wear. i work on bikes for a living and have for a looong time. i've worked for more pro teams than you can count on both hands. if you run cables in modern shifters for more than a year or maybe 2 and you ride regularly, you're asking for them to break inside the shifter. if you can't afford to replace cables and housing once a year, ride a fixed gear. if you want to ride a lot, there is certain maintenance that needs to be done. you can think whatever you want based on _your_ experience. i'm telling you the _proper_ way to do things.


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## froze (Sep 15, 2002)

that's fine, but I too know how to check my cables, that's why I've never had one break in over 40 years of riding. But your answer is typical of what I would expect from someone who works for an LBS. Pro riding is a bit different, but they get new bikes every year if not more, next I'll be hearing we should be doing the same thing and replace our bikes every year because I worked with pros and that's how they do it.


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## cxwrench (Nov 9, 2004)

i figured this would go like this. your position is based on your experience. that's fine. mine is based on working on literally hundreds of bikes a year. yes, i get a unique perspective working on pro team bikes, but that has nothing to do w/ my service advice. i threw that in there because i didn't get where i am today by being a hack teenage lbs mechanic. i take pride in what i do, and i make sure the bikes i sell and service are maintained to the best of my ability because i don't want any of my customers to get stranded out on the road...and it does happen, trust me. "oh, i just had the cables done last year..." says the guy w/ the head of the cable stuck in the shifter and the rest of the cable in his pocket. and that happened today...

here's the shifter


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## spookyload (Jan 30, 2004)

I replace mine in the winter when I don't want to ride in the snow and crud. It gives me something to do with my bike since it isn't being ridden. I run from November to February, so replacing tubes, cables, and tearing the bike down is my extent of road biking.


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## froze (Sep 15, 2002)

cxwrench said:


> i figured this would go like this. your position is based on your experience. that's fine. mine is based on working on literally hundreds of bikes a year. yes, i get a unique perspective working on pro team bikes, but that has nothing to do w/ my service advice. i threw that in there because i didn't get where i am today by being a hack teenage lbs mechanic. i take pride in what i do, and i make sure the bikes i sell and service are maintained to the best of my ability because i don't want any of my customers to get stranded out on the road...and it does happen, trust me. "oh, i just had the cables done last year..." says the guy w/ the head of the cable stuck in the shifter and the rest of the cable in his pocket. and that happened today...
> 
> here's the shifter


Ok, so what does a picture prove? It proved the rider of the bike didn't maintain the bike. He should have replaced the cable. None of my cables ever get that bad. But somehow you think all my cables look like that and hence I'm riding a time bomb. Right! And was the lever system checked to make sure something wasn't causing the fraying besides just plain cable wear?

But in the essence that you have a liability problem with customers then yes, it behooves you to bring into question issues. But to replace a cable that is in perfect shape is all about LBS profits. And you have a lot of customers who don't have a clue how to maintain their bikes that's why they bring them to you, and the excuse of: " I just had my cables replaced last year," is proof that there's a guy who never looked at them and wouldn't know what to look for if he did!!

So again we're at odds.

Please don't think I have something against you as a person, for some reason these type of posts always seem to deteriorate to that level of mentality. I don't know you at all and have nothing against you, I've never followed you around from to post to post to cause an argument with you; I'm taking issue with over preventative care that isn't necessary IF, I did capitalize that for emphasis, IF a person knows what their doing with their bikes and use quality cables, then cables should last a while longer then 1 or 2 years. 

When I use to MTB ride I had more problems with cables then on road bikes, and usually I did have to replace those once a year and sometimes sooner. But again, watchful maintenance prevented cable breakage or failure.


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## cxwrench (Nov 9, 2004)

froze said:


> Ok, so what does a picture prove? It proved the rider of the bike didn't maintain the bike. He should have replaced the cable. None of my cables ever get that bad. But somehow you think all my cables look like that and hence I'm riding a time bomb. Right!
> 
> But in the essence that you have a liability problem with customers then yes, it behooves you to bring into question issues. But to replace a cable that is in perfect shape is all about LBS profits. And you have a lot of customers who don't have a clue how to maintain their bikes that's why they bring them to you, and the excuse of: " I just had my cables replaced last year," is proof that there's a guy who never looked at them and wouldn't know what to look for if he did!!
> 
> ...


ok, this is sounding a little better. but in your first reply you said cables could last 10yrs. if the bike gets ridden w/ any regularity (and we're on a bike forum, so we expect that) there is no way a cable in a modern shifter will survive that long. that one in the photo is 11mos old, ridden a lot, but not daily as the owner is a mtb racer. 
i said nothing about replacing cables that are in perfect shape, you're saying that. we check them all before we recommend replacing them. i don't know what kind of lbs exeriences you've had, but they seem to have soured you a bit. of course we're in business to make money, but we don't make **** up about our customers bikes so that we can make _more_ money. i just think you should take care when you recommend something to a stranger on the internet that has no idea about bike maintenance. you have obviously had your own personal experience w/ your equipment, and i have had mine. being that i don't just work on my own bike, i see more in a month than you might see in years of your own riding. nothing wrong w/ that, but you have to admit it does limit your view of things that can happen. maybe we should just leave it at this and not bother everyone w/ our differences.


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## froze (Sep 15, 2002)

cxwrench said:


> ok, this is sounding a little better. but in your first reply you said cables could last 10yrs. if the bike gets ridden w/ any regularity (and we're on a bike forum, so we expect that) there is no way a cable in a modern shifter will survive that long. that one in the photo is 11mos old, ridden a lot, but not daily as the owner is a mtb racer.
> i said nothing about replacing cables that are in perfect shape, you're saying that. we check them all before we recommend replacing them. i don't know what kind of lbs exeriences you've had, but they seem to have soured you a bit. of course we're in business to make money, but we don't make **** up about our customers bikes so that we can make _more_ money. i just think you should take care when you recommend something to a stranger on the internet that has no idea about bike maintenance. you have obviously had your own personal experience w/ your equipment, and i have had mine. being that i don't just work on my own bike, i see more in a month than you might see in years of your own riding. nothing wrong w/ that, but you have to admit it does limit your view of things that can happen. maybe we should just leave it at this and not bother everyone w/ our differences.


I'm good with this, I too assume you were saying that you automatically replace perfectly good customers cables every year. This I found to be extreme...especially for road bikes. But now your making more sense and before I wasn't making enough sense. So we have no ill differences, never did.


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## bicyclerepairman (Mar 12, 2003)

How come no one corrected nickel?


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## froze (Sep 15, 2002)

bicyclerepairman said:


> How come no one corrected nickel?


Huh??


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## edle (Mar 25, 2013)

Just like all those unnecessary repair and maintenance in a car shop. It is all about make $$$.


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## froze (Sep 15, 2002)

edle said:


> Just like all those unnecessary repair and maintenance in a car shop. It is all about make $$$.


Of course, but unlike a car most people can check visually if a cable is going bad, or teeth on gears are worn, etc; I never replace either brake or derailleur cables every year, in fact my cables last many year, on my newest bike I bought in 13 and have about 12,000 miles on it I have yet to change the cables and they look just fine, I have another bike that's never had it's cables replaced since 84...but that one hasn't been ridden much, so the example here is that age doesn't matter. I've done this way for years and never had a cable break on me; even when I use to race I didn't change the cables every season. Now there was a year or two of DA briftor that made the cable take an odd turn which frayed the cable in short order like 4 to 6 month short, but for all other systems there is no reason to swap out cables every year; if you're a pro racer then fine, but you get that done for free anyways. 

A person can simply Youtube videos on how to check bicycle cables, how to check bicycle chain wear, how to check bicycle gear wear, etc, etc.


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## eboos (Mar 22, 2011)




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## frdfandc (Nov 27, 2007)

edle said:


> Just like all those unnecessary repair and maintenance in a car shop. It is all about make $$$.


You may think it's unnecessary right now, until it happens to you. That's why it's called PREVENTATIVE maintenance.


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## edle (Mar 25, 2013)

frdfandc said:


> You may think it's unnecessary right now, until it happens to you. That's why it's called PREVENTATIVE maintenance.


Those are over preventative maintenance and which is not necessary. 
Only justify if u are a professional cyclist.

Sent from my SM-N910T using Tapatalk


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## frdfandc (Nov 27, 2007)

edle said:


> Those are over preventative maintenance and which is not necessary.
> Only justify if u are a professional cyclist.
> 
> Sent from my SM-N910T using Tapatalk



How is it over preventative maintenance? The cable goes through cycles of bending, ingestion of dirt and grime, and with the advent of cables having a coating, the coating wears off and clogs up the housing, causing shifting to deteriorate. I'm not advocating changing cables every year unless you are riding a ton of miles, but every couple of years does wonders.

I've seen it personally with my own bikes and on customer bikes. On my mountain bike, I change the cables every year. My road bike is every 2 years. There is a difference in the shifting quality. With customer bikes, I've always received the "Wow, it shifts so much better" claims after cables are replaced.

I guess repacking hubs with fresh grease every year or two (loose bearing style) is over preventative as well, considering the minimal amount of grease that is placed in the hubs from the factory. Or replacing handle bar tape with fresh after a year or two because it's worn down in spots and it gives you a chance to inspect the handle bar for corrosion from sweat. Or changing a chain when it reaches .75 on a chain measuring tool or 12 1/18 inch on a ruler to prolong cassette and chain ring life.


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## cxwrench (Nov 9, 2004)

edle said:


> Those are over preventative maintenance and which is not necessary.
> Only justify if u are a professional cyclist.
> 
> Sent from my SM-N910T using Tapatalk


You are wrong, don't know what else to say.


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## edle (Mar 25, 2013)

U guy must be owning or working in a bike shop. 😉😉😉


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## cxwrench (Nov 9, 2004)

edle said:


> U guy must be owning or working in a bike shop. 😉😉😉


I don't sell service or parts if it's not needed. Like others have posted 'preventitive' maintenance is the idea. You don't wait til the motor in your blows up before you change the oil and filter, right? You don't wear your brake pads to the backing plates before you replace them, right? 
We KNOW that cables will fatigue and start to fray, then break...and we know that wear takes place in the housing and shifter performance will suffer. If they are replaced before the shifting suffers what's the problem? If you want to use your bike til things stop working that's fine, just don't advise that as being the correct way to do it.


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## ngl (Jan 22, 2002)

I don't understand why people won't spend about $10 for new housing and cable (or $49.95 for a tune-up) once a year for preventative maintenance, but yet they seem to have no problem shelling out hundreds for a new groupset or thousands for a new bike only to comment how much more superior the new is over the old.


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## froze (Sep 15, 2002)

frdfandc said:


> How is it over preventative maintenance? The cable goes through cycles of bending, ingestion of dirt and grime, and with the advent of cables having a coating, the coating wears off and clogs up the housing, causing shifting to deteriorate. I'm not advocating changing cables every year unless you are riding a ton of miles, but every couple of years does wonders.
> 
> I've seen it personally with my own bikes and on customer bikes. On my mountain bike, I change the cables every year. My road bike is every 2 years. There is a difference in the shifting quality. With customer bikes, I've always received the "Wow, it shifts so much better" claims after cables are replaced.
> 
> I guess repacking hubs with fresh grease every year or two (loose bearing style) is over preventative as well, considering the minimal amount of grease that is placed in the hubs from the factory. Or replacing handle bar tape with fresh after a year or two because it's worn down in spots and it gives you a chance to inspect the handle bar for corrosion from sweat. Or changing a chain when it reaches .75 on a chain measuring tool or 12 1/18 inch on a ruler to prolong cassette and chain ring life.


The cable changing thing, no, there isn't any change in performance of the bike shifting or braking abilities by changing the cables every year or even two years, in fact there isn't any noticeable change even after 5 years averaging 2,500 miles a year. Been there done that, followed advice of LBS's and put new cables on every year, till I got wise, stopped the practice and just kept an eye on my cables, even after 5 years and I swap the cables for new ones there was no difference whatsoever. From the way you talk about replacing cables every year or two leads me to believe that your not lubing the cables and the hardware either not at all or very little, but to save me time with typing I found a couple of websites you can read about how to do that: https://www.bikeride.com/lube-brake-shift-cables/ And Sheldon Brown has some good info as well: https://www.sheldonbrown.com/cables.html


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## cxwrench (Nov 9, 2004)

froze said:


> The cable changing thing, no, there isn't any change in performance of the bike shifting or braking abilities by changing the cables every year or even two years, in fact there isn't any noticeable change even after 5 years averaging 2,500 miles a year. Been there done that, followed advice of LBS's and put new cables on every year, till I got wise, stopped the practice and just kept an eye on my cables, even after 5 years and I swap the cables for new ones there was no difference whatsoever. From the way you talk about replacing cables every year or two leads me to believe that your not lubing the cables and the hardware either not at all or very little, but to save me time with typing I found a couple of websites you can read about how to do that: https://www.bikeride.com/lube-brake-shift-cables/ And Sheldon Brown has some good info as well: https://www.sheldonbrown.com/cables.html


I don't know what kind of experience you have other than your own bikes but I can say without a doubt that for the vast majority of bikes I see having the cables/housing done every year makes a very noticeable difference...and I probably work on over 1000 bikes a year.


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## masont (Feb 6, 2010)

If you don't notice any difference between cables/housing after 12,500 miles and brand new cables/housing, then you shouldn't ever spend a dime on cables/housing.

But most people notice the very real difference.


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## masont (Feb 6, 2010)

This thread is so old that Froze has probably changed his cables and housing since it was originally posted.


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## upstateSC-rider (Aug 21, 2004)

masont said:


> This thread is so old that Froze has probably changed his cables and housing since it was originally posted.


And not as a preventative measure, either, but because the cable frayed in the shifter.


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## frdfandc (Nov 27, 2007)

cxwrench said:


> I don't know what kind of experience you have other than your own bikes but I can say without a doubt that for the vast majority of bikes I see having the cables/housing done every year makes a very noticeable difference...and I probably work on over 1000 bikes a year.



I agree 100 percent as I mentioned before, even with my own personal bikes.


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## GlobalGuy (Jun 9, 2015)

For road bikes, it depends upon what you ride, how often you ride, the terrain, the weather, and road conditions.


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## froze (Sep 15, 2002)

masont said:


> If you don't notice any difference between cables/housing after 12,500 miles and brand new cables/housing, then you shouldn't ever spend a dime on cables/housing.
> 
> But most people notice the very real difference.


This just gets better and better, yawn.


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## cxwrench (Nov 9, 2004)

froze said:


> This just gets better and better, yawn.


I'm still guessing that your experience is yours alone, and that you don't have experience w/ hundreds if not thousands of other bikes. You really can't have a legitimate opinion if you don't have that kind of depth...you need to qualify your experience.


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## cxwrench (Nov 9, 2004)

globalguy said:


> for *any bike* it depends upon what you ride, how often you ride, the terrain, the weather, and road conditions.


ftfy...


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## frdfandc (Nov 27, 2007)

cxwrench said:


> I'm still guessing that your experience is yours alone, and that you don't have experience w/ hundreds if not thousands of other bikes. You really can't have a legitimate opinion if you don't have that kind of depth...you need to qualify your experience.



My guess his experience is "Me, Myself, and I".


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## froze (Sep 15, 2002)

cxwrench said:


> I'm still guessing that your experience is yours alone, and that you don't have experience w/ hundreds if not thousands of other bikes. You really can't have a legitimate opinion if you don't have that kind of depth...you need to qualify your experience.


Oh, so now you get snarky. I can have any opinion I want regardless what you think, it's why it's called an opinion, shall I give you the definition? well of course I shall because it's obvious you don't know what the meaning is or you wouldn't said what you said, so here it is for the confused: "a view or judgment formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge." Read that several times and let soak into your brain. 

Now having said that I do know that people get perfectly fine cables changed out every year because some dope at an LBS said to do that without ever checking to see if the cables truly need that. The funny thing is see, is that I KNOW of LBS's who DO CHECK the cables to see IF they need replacing or NOT!! and these more honest LBS's more times than not do not replace the cables, and may not for several years. 

I talked to a mechanic I know at my LBS about this due to this conversation, he said they take a customers bike in for an annual tuneup and recommend the a la carte tuneup, which means they check things over to see what, if anything needs to be replaced (or more intensive bearing lube job(s), if nothing needs to be replaced they just clean, lube and adjust, and he said it isn't uncommon for a bike to go 3, 4, or even 5 years after they sold a road bike before cables need to be replaced, mountain bikes used off road it was not common for them to last a year to 2 years, sometimes even 3 years. So for an LBS to make a blanket statement that all cables need to be replaced yearly is all about taking as much profit as possible from the dumb customer who doesn't know better, and most don't know better because they assume their LBS wouldn't steer them wrong (LOL!!); and my LBS doesn't want to be in that crowd, and they aren't the only ones I know who aren't in that crowd of bilking customers out of their money, in fact all the LBS's I did long term business with were like that...ALL you scream? yes all, because smart guy, when I went to an LBS that practiced the greed principles of doing business I never did business with them after that, thus they were not MY LBS for the long term. And almost any person can tell if cables need to be replaced, it's not rocket science that only those degreed in rocket science that work at LBS as mechanics for $8 an hour know how to do! 

For those of you reading this and wondering how I can tell if a cable is going bad, and how to check, see this video, I think you all will find that it isn't rocket science that takes a specially degreed $8 hour mechanic to tell you, in fact it will take about a minute to watch the video not 4 years of studying: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHqkFlNTyEM

Now I'm ready for your next snarky remark CW!


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## cxwrench (Nov 9, 2004)

froze said:


> Oh, so now you get snarky. I can have any opinion I want regardless what you think, it's why it's called an opinion, shall I give you the definition? well of course I shall because it's obvious you don't know what the meaning is or you wouldn't said what you said, so here it is for the confused: "a view or judgment formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge." Read that several times and let soak into your brain.
> 
> Now having said that I do know that people get perfectly fine cables changed out every year because some dope at an LBS said to do that without ever checking to see if the cables truly need that. The funny thing is see, is that I KNOW of LBS's who DO CHECK the cables to see IF they need replacing or NOT!! and these more honest LBS's more times than not do not replace the cables, and may not for several years.
> 
> ...


Like you old Tony doesn't have a clue. Anyone can make a YT video...that doesn't mean they know ****. Sorry. That video is also about brake cables...haven't we been talking mainly about shift cables/housing? The mechanic you talked to? Could be the same thing, just as you say there are plenty of mechanics out there that don't know what they're doing. I like to think that between 20+ years in the business, 15 years working for pro teams, and a bunch of training from different component manufacturers, I know a little bit more.


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## froze (Sep 15, 2002)

cxwrench said:


> Like you old Tony doesn't have a clue. Anyone can make a YT video...that doesn't mean they know ****. Sorry. That video is also about brake cables...haven't we been talking mainly about shift cables/housing? The mechanic you talked to? Could be the same thing, just as you say there are plenty of mechanics out there that don't know what they're doing. I like to think that between 20+ years in the business, 15 years working for pro teams, and a bunch of training from different component manufacturers, I know a little bit more.


Whatever you say


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## frdfandc (Nov 27, 2007)

froze said:


> Whatever you say


This comment just shows that you don't have the depth in experience that CX or I have, with a combined 30+ years and thousands of bikes.


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## froze (Sep 15, 2002)

frdfandc said:


> This comment just shows that you don't have the depth in experience that CX or I have, with a combined 30+ years and thousands of bikes.


Whatever you say.


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