I'm using Nokons and the only place my cables are exposed are about an inch above my FD cable anchor bolt and where the housing stop is located on my RD. The liner is supposed to run the full length of the cable, save for a little around the top tube; they provide cheesy plastic tubing to *link* the two liner sections together. They call it lubrication ports or something like that. If you get the replacement liner you can run a full length liner since it isn't pre-cut like the the ones that come with the links.