You mentioned cables, and I'd steer away from thick grease getting into cable housings. I used too thick a grease in my old VW throttle cable housing -- worked fine in the Nevada summer, but in the winter the throttle return spring wasn't strong enough to pull the cable back, and cleaning the housing out enough to free things up was one of those projects I don't need more of. I'm sure you'll get strong opinions on types of grease, but my hunch is that in the grand scheme, bikes are low tech and not finicky. Do they still make white Lubriplate?
Reid Fisher
San Martin, California