Brake levers

Colin MacDonald said:

Quick question: I'm planning to change my current road bike from drop
to flat handlebars, and will therefore need new brake levers. The
bike has cantilever brakes; can I fit V-brake levers or must they be
canti-specific?

Colin

V brake and cantis need different amounts of cable pull, so the levers
are different.

You could also get swept back bars and use the current brake levers,
somthing like these "moustache" bars:
http://www.rivbike.com/images/products/full/0000/0656/16-028-1.jpg

Bear in mind that the diameter of the point where the bar is clamped,
into the stem varies between road and mountain bike handlebars.
The clamp diameter of brake levers and gear levers is also different.

If you change your road drop handlebars to mountain bike bars, you may
need to change your stem as well.

Moustache bars as above will likely have the same diameter at the stem
clamp and lever positions as your current road bars, so you may need
to change nothing except the bars, and put on some fresh tape.

There is (as usual), a very comprehensive article on this at Sheldon
Brown's site:
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/deakins/handlebars.html

hth,

bookieb.

Colin MacDonald said:

Quick question: I'm planning to change my current road bike from drop
to flat handlebars, and will therefore need new brake levers. The
bike has cantilever brakes; can I fit V-brake levers or must they be
canti-specific?

V-brake specific levers would be a dodgy idea as the cable pull ratio for
cantis and calipers is quite different from V's

Some levers have a little switch to switch between the two modes.

~PB

Quoted message said:

If you change your road drop handlebars to mountain bike bars, you may
need to change your stem as well.

Or pick up a shim for a couple of quid instead http://www.hubjub.co.uk/nitto/nitto.htm
I used this shim to fit some 25.4mm bars (with 22.2mm ends) to a 26mm
clamp no problem. They say you could do almost as well by just
cutting out two sections from a Coke can...!

Good news is once you've got 22.2mm bar ends you can fit better
braking systems. Don't know why drops have a bigger diameter, I wish
they didn't.

Good tip I got the other week was to only tighten the controls on the
bars enough so that they still move under high forces - minimizes
damage in a crash, and means you can make minor tweaks in position
without getting the tools out.

Duncan

Duncan Smith said:

Good tip I got the other week was to only tighten the controls on the
bars enough so that they still move under high forces - minimizes
damage in a crash, and means you can make minor tweaks in position
without getting the tools out.

I had mine done up about that tight until recently, then I tried
climbing a steep hill while holding the hoods and ... I think I'd rather
not have them moving around under me.

-dan

Quoted message said:

Duncan Smith said:

Good tip I got the other week was to only tighten the controls on the
bars enough so that they still move under high forces - minimizes
damage in a crash, and means you can make minor tweaks in position
without getting the tools out.

I had mine done up about that tight until recently, then I tried
climbing a steep hill while holding the hoods and ... I think I'd rather
not have them moving around under me.

-dan

Yea don't do it for hoods, more for normal levers on flat bars I
reckon...

in message <[email hidden]>, Colin

MacDonald (') said:

Quick question: I'm planning to change my current road bike from drop
to flat handlebars, and will therefore need new brake levers. The
bike has cantilever brakes; can I fit V-brake levers or must they be
canti-specific?

They must be specific to short pull brakes. However, there are plenty
available.

--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

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