After I got back from Lake Placid, I found that the monsoons had taken a toll on my bike. Neither the brakes nor the shifters worked right. I had to replace every cable and every housing. This was more than a little irritating, since most of them were new in the previous month.

When I installed these cables I used Tri Flow synthetic grease on the cable. I had never done that before, but a LBS mechanic I observed always greased the cables. Is this a good idea? Did I use the right grease? Are there good and bad cable housings? A couple of the housings had the vinyl housing pushed back and the inner metal jacket exposed. I don't know if this was because of a lousy housing or just a result of having to apply excessive force to the cable because it was sticking.

Any insight would be appreciated. It is a real pain replacing these things.