brake lever/caliper compatibility

bbp said:

I've spent some time trying to get my head around the different styles of brakes and their compatibility and I think I've got most of it sorted but still a couple of questions.
Normal road levers will work with road calipers, canti's and short mini-v's.
V-brake levers with v-brakes (or a travel agent with road levers)

Are mechanical disk levers the same pull as v-brakes or minis/canti's?

And if using road calipers with a flat bar, what lever type offers the best option, with good braking power for not too hard a grab on the lever (this would be for a girl)? Are normal mtb levers adequate in this regard, despite being designed for the longer cable pull/higher mechanical advantage v-brake caliper?

You can make V-brakes work with road levers by using a travel-agent to change the amount of cable pull. Most road tandems are set up like this.

Mechanical discs generally require the same cable travel as V-brakes. Avid do make one tat works with road levers but it feels better when there is more cable pull.

You can buy Avid levers which are adjustable for the amount of pull and will work with either V's or calipers.

Cheers

Geoff

bbp said:

I've spent some time trying to get my head around the different styles of brakes and their compatibility and I think I've got most of it sorted but still a couple of questions.
Normal road levers will work with road calipers, canti's and short mini-v's.
V-brake levers with v-brakes (or a travel agent with road levers)

Are mechanical disk levers the same pull as v-brakes or minis/canti's?

[font=MS Gothic]Dual-Pivot Calipers offer the best braking power with not too hard a grab (But stay away from generic dual-pivots and look alikes from obscure china brands). Get campy or shimano and tektros aren't bad either considering the price.[/font]

bbp said:

And if using road calipers with a flat bar, what lever type offers the best option, with good braking power for not too hard a grab on the lever (this would be for a girl)? Are normal mtb levers adequate in this regard, despite being designed for the longer cable pull/higher mechanical advantage v-brake caliper?

[font=MS Gothic]IMO they are more than adequate. Get the ones where you can adjust the pull ratio.[/font]

I have Promax Dual Pivot Road Calipers on my Tri bike and flat bars. I use the recomended Shimano BL-R440 Flat Bar Road Lever kit.

http://www.shimano.com.au/publish/content/australia/en/cycling/customer_support/service_diagrams/Road_SI_2006.MainContentPar.0021.Schematic.0001.File.tmp/bl_r440_ev.pdf

I use road levers with V-Brakes on one of my cheap singlespeed flat-bar-to-drop-bar conversions. They work fine, you just need true rims and well adjusted brake pads. You get about 0.5-1cm of pad-rim pull.

thanks for the answers folks, that should get my problems solved. In the interests of not having to always have perfectly straight or clean rims I'll probably avoid v's and road levers without travel agents.
Might try a pair of normal mtb levers with the road calipers before I bother buying any new ones.

Here's a good article on brake levers:

http://sheldonbrown.com/gloss_bo-z.html#brakelever

The section on "cable pull" may be of interest to you. There are plenty of links to related issues, as well.