First I just wanted to thank billj for the original details for this topic
and offer my experience - in short, very good.
I've had my Thorn Raven Nomad for about one and a half years now, and have put up with stiff'ish shifting for much of that time - I only know that now. I imported the Nomad to Australia (from the UK). During the trip some of the cabling got a little kinked, but not all that bad. Now I can't really say if the stiff'ish shifting was due to the kink, or the choice of cable or housing Thorn used. What I can say is that whenever it got wet it got worse, sometimes very stiff to change up.
So to do the replacement I purchased the following:
* Park Tools Cable and Housing Cutter CN-10 (excellent cutters)
* 10 meters of Shimano SP41 Gear Cable Outer (plenty to spare)
* 2 x Shimano XTR Gear Cable Inner
* Bag of Transfil Gear Cable Ferrules (Bag of 100 - only use 4)
With the right gear the job was very easy. I've got an external gear mech (EX). I took it slow, with removal of old cables it probably took me 1 hour, but next time I'd be surprised if it takes more than 15 - 20 minutes. I simply measured (with a ruler) 20 cm of inner cable as per the Rohloff recommendations and everything went back together perfectly.
The difference is chalk and cheese. Actually butter comes to mind now with the ease of selecting gears.
I fully support this choice of replacement cables. If your gear changes are not light or your cables are getting on a bit, do this change.
