On a derailleur geared bike?
First thing - when you fit and secure your cable, leave the end long with a crimped end, and coil it around with the end flicked in to the coil to secure it. A small neat coil like this will sit there neatly for years without getting untangled.
Second - for simple lubrication, shift your rear derailleur into the lowest gear, then without pedaling the cranks, click the shifter back to the high gear. This will give you enough cable slack to be able to un-ship the cable housing sections from the cable stops. You can then move them along the cable and lube it. No need to unbolt the RD cable-bolt. This does of course require slotted cable stops.
Third - when the cable gets particularly dirty (on my MTB this always used to be indicated by random faulty gear shifts, a bit like the gears were out of adjustment), you can remove the cable fully to clean it better. Just snip the end a little bit shorter to get a neat end before re-fitting.
I once tried to solder the cable ends and it just wouldn't work for me. I think that it may be something to do with the fact that they are now SS cables - I used to solder the old zinc-plated cables back in the day. Probably needs some special flux but I've never chased that up.
My experience with the old MTB with a cable run along the seat-stay was that the rear housing loop gathered water and allowed corrosion to develop. The solution for this was to replace the cable about every year. The longer term solution that put a complete stop to the problem was to use an Avid Rollamajig - now sadly no longer made. The open end to it allowed any water to drain out of the housing. Once I'd fitted the Rollamajig I
hardly ever removed the gear cables. Brilliant idea - no longer need it with the Rohloff
Of course the other solution is to get one of the newer RD designs which have completely changed the cable run to remove the problem of the gunged-up cable housing.
