Originally Posted by
RubeRad
lol me too, but I always trim the end before trying to reuse it.
I was in a bike shop the other day because I had a RD problem I couldn't solve, and one of the things they did was put in longer full-length housing to make the bends out of the shifter and into the RD smoother. I was watching and chatting as the mech worked, and he just dropped the old cable in the trash can. When he wasn't looking I inconspicuously sidled over, grabbed my old cable, coiled it around my hand, and stuck it in my pocket.
Sounds like something I would do. I briefly worked at the LBS in 2011 when I was underemployed, and the mechanics gave me all the stuff headed for the garbage. There was an Ultegra triple crankset whose large and middle chainrings had been destroyed. I kept it for a while, and then there was a sale on RaceFace chainrings at Nashbar. The crankset is on my commuter bike. That was a big savings.