aero bull bar levers

[John Tolhurst]

At some point we are going to have to bite the bullet and create a lever that works for the bullhorn bars, that mounts below the grips.

Is there a brake lever model that can used with a replaced lever, or a replaced clamp? Or new for both? What are cable routing/ pivoting options?

I've been through these issues when originally planning the Vendetta and bullhorn bars and the provided brake levers were the best solution I could see at the time.

How about a cable stopper fixed to the bar, and the lever pulling the cable directly, with its pivot point right near the bar?

When done right, it should be just the fist punching through the air, with the bar, shifter and brake items conforming to that shape rather than dictating it.

 

[1happyreader]

best butter not too thin

Wish you could find a Engineering student who would test designs for the price of a new vendetta ( or let him keep the test rig ).

Would probably be expensive and unethical to get a University Engineering dept to have a contest for the best new design.

guess these are just quick fix fantasies.

My hats off to your organizational skills, I cannot imagine staying on task with soo many demands and wishes in the queue.

 

[ratz]

BMX might be the place to looks


For a starter have a look at http://www.diacompe.com.tw/product_list.asp?psclass=26&p=1 the "Dirty Hary" and the "Gold Finger" series have the pull direction you want and they are compact; and they have Removeable mounting brackets. With something like that you'd only have to fabricate your own bracket and not a brake. The braking power of BMX brakes should be sufficient, they pack a lot of leverage in those short levers. The MX series might be a better fit but I'm not sure if you can remove the bracket.


You could also talk to the guys at Pauls Components; their brake levers are reallly close; and they would only need to machine a different bracket size, probably not too much tooling for them. While the look very industrial in the photos they are pretty nice in the real world. With their anodizing they can produce some nice colors http://www.paulcomp.com/brakelevers.html

 

[John Tolhurst]

http://www.diacompe.com.tw/pr

http://www.diacompe.com.tw/product_View.asp?nid=1022

Not too far off? I like the curved lever, it might need shorter post.

 

[Eric Winn]

John - Hard to tell for sure

John - Hard to tell for sure from just the photo of the DIA-COMPE EVO lever but when you hold up the Tektro RL720 in about the same orientation as the photo I have to depress the Tektro brake lever almost fully to align with the angles I'm seeing in that EVO photo. If this is roughly approximate it doesn't look like you would get much or any brake pull with the levers oriented as desired on the Cruzbike bullhorns.

EVO
http://www.diacompe.com.tw/product_View.asp?nid=1022

Tektro RL720
?http://www.tektro.com/_english/01_products/01_prodetail.php?pid=58&sortname=Lever&sort=1&fid=3

The DIA-COMPE MX121 and MX122 look like they might have suitable overall geometry and clamp sizing but yikes the clamp design is massively crude. Crude I could live with as it would largely be covered with bar tape but the massive part is a problem as in this application the clamp area ends up being wrapped by your palm. The bolt side looks really bad, the other side not much better...

MX121
http://www.diacompe.com.tw/product_View.asp?nid=972

MX122
http://www.diacompe.com.tw/product_View.asp?nid=961

The Tektro RL720s have a very slim clamping design. By reversing the installation position the larger bolt side is away from your palm and the small hinge area can be oriented to just clear the base of your palm when grasping the bar and brake lever.

An interesting dilemma. I can see why you went with the Tektros as the best compromise. BTW I can attest the Tektros are really tough little buggers too.

-Eric

 

[John Tolhurst]

We put a shimano version of

We put a shimano version of these brake-levers-for-drop-bars onto the drop bars of one of Maria Parker's RAAM bikes.