What are you doing where you are even dealing with cables? I've never had to do any maintenance on my roadbike myself. I just take it to the shop for a $25 dollar tuneup once a year and the bike remains in perfect working order without any other intervention. I don't even garage the bike. People always seem to complain about maintenance on bikes when justifying crazy brakes or derailleurs, but in my experience bike maintenance is absurdly cheap at most shops to the point where there is no reason to ever see grease on your hands unless you like to do that stuff as a hobby. Like $20 cheap.