If you look at my post history, you will see that we were having brake problems. I installed salmon pads and adjusted the brakes now. The drop levers are working perfectly. However, as you warned me, the safety / suicide levers barely brake.
We wanted to get rid of those levers, but wife is not comfortable in the drops yet, and those brakes are hard to pull in the hood. We are planning on installing interrupter levers to the top bar, to have more functional brakes there.
I understand that I will have to change cables and housing, as well as rout the brakes under the tapes. I watched several videos on how to do that, but those r are done on modern bikes. It seems that on her bike the lever doesn't take the usual ferrel, for instance.
So I guess my question is, do I need to adapt anything to a vintage bike and brake system?
Thanks!
by _melquiades
3 Comments
Those levers are easy to remove. I’d suggest just removing them and trying it out for a short while. You may want to adjust the brake cable as the brakes will be slightly more open, but you shouldn’t need to do so right away as the brakes will still have the same stopping power, just slightly more travel before the pads contact the rims.
You may find that you adapt to them a lot quicker than you think. I was a little worried too when I removed them from my bike a long, long… long time ago.
And you still have the option to put them back on.
You have to replace the levers with aero style levers if you want to do it right. This will also require retaping the bars.
It’s not really different but might look goofy.
Where are you on budget? A bike from the last twenty years will be a huge upgrade. New brake levers with the new hood style and the correct pull for your bike would also be an upgrade. Tektro and Cane Creek have both offered them in the past. I’m serious about a new bike though: kinda broke my heart where old bikes are concerned when I broke a frame about twelve years ago.