Brakes: Hand Lever

(M = mountain bike; R = road bike; C = cruiser)

DESCRIPTION: (M, R) The thing you grab to put on hand brakes. The unit is attached to the bars either by one or two easy-to-get-at mounting bolts on the side of the post, or by one hard-to-get-at mounting bolt down inside the post. (See Figs 2-2, 2-3, 2-4.)

: Mountain Bike Brake Lever

Info-graphic: Aero Brake Lever

Info-graphic: Old Style Brake Lever

PROBLEMS: (M, R) Stickies. If you have taken a spill, the problem is usually a bent lever, or dirt and rust stuck in the part of the lever where it pivots. See if the lever is twisted out of line. Compare it with the other one. If the lever is bent, try to straighten it with your bare hands, holding the part that mounts to the handlebar in one hand and bending the lever with the other. It may help to stick a screwdriver between the lever and the post or housing (on road bike units), but go easy with the screwdriver. Just straighten the lever unit enough to get you home. Get some oil if you can and squirt a bit onto the hand lever axle or pivot. If the lever seems weak or still partially sticky, make sure you replace the whole unit before your next ride. (See Hand lever broken, below.) You don’t want that brake to break the next time you really need it.

(M) If the pivot is dirty or rusty and has tightened up, loosen the pivot bolt about two turns. Then squeeze on the lever and release it a bunch of times to work out any dirt in there. If you have some lubricant with you, squirt a dab in there. Then tighten the bolt. If the lever action gets stiff, back off the pivot bolt a quarter turn or so. Most pivot bolts have self-locking nuts, so they don’t come loose if you don’t tighten them up all the way. Even if the pivot bolt is loose after you back it off a bit, it will probably stay in there until you get home. Just make sure you take the brake lever apart when you get there; all you have to do is loosen the pivot bolt all the way, take the lever out, then clean it and replace any bent or munched parts, and reassemble it.

(M, R) If the whole band lever is loose, so it slips around on the handlebars, you have to tighten the mounting bolt that holds it to the bars. On most mountain bike brake hand levers, you need an Allen key to do the tightening. If the hand lever slips out of place while it is loose, get it lined up parallel to the other one (so it points neither too high nor too low), then tighten the mounting bolt firmly.

(R) On road bike brake levers, the screw that tightens the lever clamp on the handlebar is often down inside the lever post. To get at it, you may have to release the brake cable (that means take the tension out of the cable so that the brake lever relaxes and swings freely). Whatever kind of brake you want to release, you have to grab the brake mechanism and squeeze the brake shoes against the rim. Use the third hand tool if you have one. Stick it through the spokes of the wheel and stretch the wire loops over the brake-shoe nuts. On most road bikes, there will be some kind of quick-release gizmo. It will be at or just above the brake mechanism. (See Figure 2-10.) It is usually a little lever that you can pull toward the side of the mechanism, to partially release the brake.

(R) Take the resulting looseness in the cable back up to the hand lever and you’re ready to get at the post-tightening screw. If you don’t have a quick-release lever, loosen the cable anchor bolt that holds the end of the cable at the brake mechanism. (See Figures 2-8 and 2-10.) Try to avoid pulling the end of the cable all the way out of the cable anchor bolt, especially if the end of the cable is frayed into strands. A frayed cable end is hard to get back through the little hole in the cable anchor bolt.

(R) When you have loosened the brake cable by hook or by crook, pull the brake lever all the way down, as if you are jamming the brake on. Look down inside the hand lever post. Aha! That little Allen screw head or hex nut down there is what you have been trying to get at. If you have the type with an Allen screw head, you’re in luck. Just wiggle an Allen wrench down in there and tighten up the screw, clockwise. Counterclockwise loosens the thing, but don’t loosen it until it comes out. Getting it back in is a tricky operation.

(R) If your model has a hexbolt head down there, you need a socket to tighten that bolt. It might be an 8-mm bolt head if the bike is old or fancy. Otherwise, it is probably a 9-mm nut. Use the proper socket on a Y wrench (see below) or use a standard socket tool to tighten the bolt down in there. Don’t try to use a tool that won’t work, like your fingers, or a crescent wrench, or a vise-grip, or your teeth.

(R) When you have tightened the mounting screw or nut, you have to reset the brake by reversing whichever procedure you used to loosen the cable. A third hand is a big help. If you run into trouble, see Brakes loose in the Brake Cables section.

(M) If you can’t reach the band lever because your fingers are too short or the lever sticks out too far, first loosen the brakes a little (see Adjusting the brakes, below), then look on or under the main body of the hand lever unit and see if there is a small screw or Allen bolt that doesn’t have an obvious purpose. Turn the screw or bolt (if your brakes have one), and you should see the hand lever move closer or farther from the handlebars. Fiddle with the thing until the lever is just close enough for you to reach and no closer Re-adjust the brakes if they are too tight now. Beware: If you have to adjust the lever so it is more than one-third of the way in toward the bar, you are probably limiting your rim clearance and braking range too much. Consider getting special short-reach levers from a custom-bike dealer.

(M, R) Hand lever broken or badly munched. You need to replace it. You really smacked that tree with the bars, didn’t you? Hope your knuckles are better off than your brake lever.

(M, R) To replace the hand lever, first you have to loosen the cable and slip the barrel end out of the handle.

(M) To loosen a mountain bike brake cable, you go to the mechanism end and pull the removable end of the short transverse cable out of its slot in one of the cantilevers. This gives you a little slack in the whole system. Then, back at the hand lever, twiddle and twist the adjusting barrel and locknut to line up the slots in them, then slip the barrel end out of the hand lever.

(R) To loosen a road bike brake cable, just loosen the anchor bolt on the mechanism. Then you can pull the whole cable backwards out of the housing, until the mechanism end comes out of the hand lever. Then go on to the replacement procedure, down a few paragraphs.

(M) Once the cable is out of the way, you have to remove the bar and the handlebar grip. On most bar ends, you just loosen a binder bolt with an Allen key, and the thing slides right off. Handlebar grips can be tougher to remove. Try twisting and pulling slowly first. No go? You have to get serious. If the grip covers the end of the bar (i.e., you have no bar ends), you can poke a hole in that end cover (if there isn’t a hole there already) and blow compressed air in there as you twist and pull the grip off. If you’re a bagpipe player, you may have enough lung power to exert the necessary air pressure; otherwise, go to a bike or car shop that has an air compressor, put the cleaning nozzle on the end of their hose, stick the nozzle into your hole in the grip-end, then blast air in there while you twist and pull on the grip. Still no luck? Some grips are glued on. You have to cut them off with a razor knife, then get a replacement grip.

(M) If you have a grip-shift gear changer, loosen the Allen bolt that cinches the unit onto the handlebar and slide the whole shifter off the bar.

(M) OK, so you’ve got your bar end and hand grip or grip-shift unit off your handlebar. Now all you have to do to remove the hand lever is loosen the mounting bolt, then slide the lever unit off the bar. Get an exact replacement, if possible; it feels weird to use two different types of brake levers.

(M) Slide the new lever unit on, twist it on the bar to line it up parallel with the other lever (so the new one points neither up nor down too much), then tighten the mounting bolt.

(M) Slip on your hand grip. If you ride in lots of mud, use rubber cement as a combo lube/glue: when it’s wet, the grip slides on easy; when it dries, the grip stays put, no matter how wet and gooey your hands get. Just remember that you’ll have to cut the grip off if you ever need to remove it.

(M) Put your bar end on again, twist it to line it up with its mate, and tighten the binder bolt. Then put the cable back in the way it came out, lining up the slots as you go. Do a little adjusting the brakes, as in the Brake Cable section in this chapter, and you’ll be set to go again (and STOP, too!).

Next: Brake Cables

Prev: Introduction to Bicycle Brakes