Originally Posted by
prj71
I do ride that much per week. But why should I replace them if they are working just fine? I don't know anyone that replaces their cables and housing once a year. If the cable/housing is going bad I'm thinking it would start showing itself in the form of hard shifting performance and I don't have that. I'll replace when there is evidence of wear.
Like I said...I have a bike from 2016 and 2018 and none of the shifter cables or housings have been touched and they still shift perfectly fine. Only thing replaced on them is chains, chainrings, cassettes and derailleur. My other 5 bikes are 2020 and newer and nothing has been changed on them yet.
I would think the biggest factor would be riding conditions and whether or not if it's a partially sealed or fully sealed cables. A hard and fast rule of every year seems a bit excessive.
My mountain and road bikes have carbon bars. No corrosion.
I promise you that your bikes don't shift as well as they did when new. Not possible. In fact if you lived here I'd pay for your new cables/housing/labor if you didn't notice a difference after having them replaced. You don't wait til the engine blows up in your before doing oil/filter changes, do you? Changing them regularly nearly eliminates them fatiguing/breaking in the shifter as well. A bike that sees 'maintenance' will always work compared to one that only gets 'repaired'. I see/hear this all the time with Mtb suspension too...'why service it, it works fine'? Obviously at the opposite end of the spectrum I worked for a pro Mtb team for a season, and did a couple of seasons working for a CX racer. New cables/housing every week/race, no fail. That's my favorite thing about electronic shifting.