Originally Posted by
The Golden Boy
Although I believe there is a matter of diminishing returns- the whole idea is to reduce friction in your cable pull.
Lubed housings are lubed and slick all the way through, reducing friction all the way through the housing. Galvanized cables are cheap- but they're rough and they rust. Stainless cables are slick and shiney- they have less friction and they have less of a chance of rusting, reducing that risk of developing friction. The Teflon coated cables are slicker yet.
I, personally think quality pre-lubed housing and lubed stainless cables are "good enough" for me.
As for how much of a difference it makes- I had a bike that was shifting all goofy. It was indexed shifting, and it wasn't reliably going where I wanted it to, or staying where I wanted it to. Changing the cables (and housing) changed that. I really wanted to use the cool old stuff, but the new stuff just worked THAT much better.
+1
Agreed. The pre stretched, coated cables with slick housings seem to work a lot better shifting on sti setups....at least for me.
On regular, nothing-special-vintage builds, I have found that inexpensive Bell cable kits(I do lube the cables) work just fine. And the cheaper cable kits, such as the Bell ones, usually cut just fine using the 'cable in the housing trick' when you cut, and a good pair of cable/housing cutters like what Park tool makes. /shrug