Originally Posted by
tiger1964
Well, on my daily-rider Palo Alto, all the cabling is between 21 years old (when I bought the bike online) and 39 years old (when it was built). No reason to complain, nothing is broken
Do your brakes actually stop you any more? IMHO, cables and housings need to be replaced periodically because 1) if you are using unlined housings the metal interior and cables get corroded or badly worn so the frictional drag becomes so significant that most of your hand pressure goes into overcoming friction instead of pushing the brake pads against the rim; or 2) if you are using lined cables the low friction lining eventually gets worn through, leading to the same excessive drag and poor braking performance.
Personally, I go one step beyond using Jagwire and use rather pricey Dura Ace brake cables. I found an article summarizing testing of a number of cables a few years ago and those had by far the lowest frictional drag of any cable brand/model. Upon changing to those cables my braking performance was vastly improved.
Also, regarding shift cables, most of the new ones are much skinnier than the old ones and don't work as well. My local bike shop sources large diameter cables for Campagnolo NR shifters that seem to be more positive. I believe those are available through Boulder Bicycle.