So I have the same bike as you. The standard shimano cable and housing package set will work good. Last year I tried to replace the housing and I couldn't pull out the front deraileur housing attached near the BB. The housing runs internally from near the stem, down the frame, around the BB and up to a small frame hole near the front deraileur. Turns out it's a defect and I couldn't free the housing from the frame hole. I took it to my local Specialized dealer and they had to send the frame to Specialized to drill a hole, which freed the housing. Then they replaced it and sent it back. So I'm curious what your experience will be !

Measure.

Yes for sure, but want the replacements in hand. Update: I just ordered a kit. That was easier than anticipated.

Thanks for the info! I'll keep you posted.

Loved my transition! Glad you are keeping yours and fixing it up! No guidance, just glad to see someone else likes them too!

I had a similar experience to natewalsh above and as he notes its a common issue. It doesn't always require the frame to be drilled but it I had to remove the BB and really fish around in the frame to re-align thing which took age. Last I checked the outer housing felt like it was stuck again so I will only be replacing the inner cable the next swap.

What I did notice when I swapped out the cable was that the outer was still in really good shape. If you do find yourself with a stuck outer you should be fine just to replace the inner. The only outer cable on the Transition that really takes a hammering is the rear brake where it pops out under the BB.

In terms of cable housing I can't remember the lengths as I used the old cables as a template. The front mech is important to get right though because the cable has an internal stop within the frame. If you go to long or too short you will have a headache getting the inner cable to come out the frame. The trick is to insert another cable into the exist port so it running the wrong way through the frame. Then use this inner as a guide for the new outer and inner. The same process works well for the rear mech cable in getting it to exist properly.

Fingers crossed nothing sticks and then it is a very straight forward process. If you do run into issues force is unlikely to be your friend.

I always try to leave some sort of mechanism for fishing cables through an internally routed frame. I leave the cable in the frame by clipping the head off the cable near the shifter and leave the cable attached to the derailleur. Then pull the housing out of the frame. This leaves the old cable running through the frame. Then push the new housing through the frame. When you are satisfied that the housing is properly seated you can pull the old cable and slide the new one in.

On my Transition I did once have a situation where the new cable would go through the housing just fine, but it was getting hung up at the little hole in the frame. The problem was that the cables are sort of soldered at the end to keep them from fraying. This makes the end a touch fatter than the rest of the cable. The solution was use something like a grinder or Dremel to reshape the tip of the cable so it doesn’t have that fatter end.

Thanks! That Transition served me well over the years!

Great tips! Crazy how this helped spark back tons of memories from the last time I did it. Thanks for the help!

Great tip! This is kind of what I was envisioning, and the reason why I didn't want to simply remove and measure before ordering replacements. Thanks!

You don't need to remove them in order to measure.