Originally Posted by
corrado33
Yes, old bikes can use their cables for longer because the indexing (if present) is much less picky.
Try using a 20 year old cable and housing on a modern 9 or 10 speed and you'd see much different results. Cables and housings are cheap. Once a year IS probably a bit overkill, but it's ~$15 a year to make sure my shifting is dead on and not have to touch it for the rest of the year.
Thanks. That does make sense. My current bike is 5 years old. I can see the rear brake cable was already changed. My derailleurs still shifts flawlessly (once I adjusted them). I'll keep that in mind for my next Spring tuneup or if the shifting becomes problematic.