No. If you're in salt air, you'll have to do things more often than you'd be able to get away with elsewhere.

White lithium grease before they go in the housing keeps them happy.

Teflon coated cables and Teflon lined outers. I haven't needed to lube them. Then again, I have full external cabling so not a lot of cable is in a housing.

My internal cables have the same amount of housing as external cables.


I got Jagwire. Didn't lube them. So far (1200 miles) no problems. We'll see after 10,000 miles.

clean and dry for me.

Stainless cables and modern teflon housing - dry. However, I have been using RocknRoll cable magic on derailleur housing (dries dry) and I do find it makes a positive difference. I also put Beoshield T9 in the cable/housing of any bike that gets wet often before installing ferrules.

Shimano does recommend a special grease for install, but I find it unnecessary unless there's a lot of friction (internal routing). Epic Ride also really helps smooth out tight housing bends if there's no option.

Shimano Road Cables are PTFE coated.

Thanks. Good to know. And as we all know I am sure, that is the same as Teflon.

I never lube the cables, but that's because I have a box of 100 and just replace them every few months. Should last a while.

I only apply oil at the interface where the cable goes into the STI shifter, not the cable housing itself. Only started doing this after some friction issues causes the cable to get mangled up inside the shifter ratcheting mech.