I have old dull aluminum break pulls on dropbars with suicide levers. The new brakes are Tektro long reach. Should I change the levers? If so what is a good quality/price lever to buy?
1 Answer
Well, you don't have to… That said, Tektro makes some very nice and inexpensive levers – both drop bar levers (RL340) and interrupter levers (RL720) which are much more effective than suicide levers. At the very least, I would take off the suicide levers, I've never had good luck with them. The problem that I had with suicide levers was that they had so much flex in them that it was hard to get good braking unless your wheels were perfectly true and the brakes were adjusted very close to the rim.
Found an extensive discussion on suicide levers here.
-
-
3The RL520 are for linear pull/v-brakes. They won't work properly with road calipers or cantilevers. There are other similarly prices levers that work with road calipers.– KibbeeJul 3, 2015 at 15:58
-
Thank you! Good catch, the right levers are the RL340, added links above.– dluJul 3, 2015 at 16:41
-
I checked out some notes on why suicide bars suck.. and I strongly dislike these old levers anyway. so I picked up those 340's .. they were available here in Japan for $25 - thanks!– BrendanJul 4, 2015 at 0:02