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I recently bought a fixed gear/single speed with a flip flop hub. It has drop bars with two brake positions. One on the hood and one set of cross top brakes. I was considering removing the hood brakes, as having two sets looks a little silly (to me) on a fixed gear. I don’t know if the bike was originally a conversion or if it came this way.

Would it be okay to remove the hood brakes and keep the cross bar brakes?

I do hope I worded everything appropriately! Thank you in advance for your advice.

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You can use cross top levers without the main lever with some hacking. There is a thread about it here: https://www.bikeforums.net/singlespeed-fixed-gear/108969-how-install-inline-brake-lever-primary.html

You can also replace it with a 'normal' brake lever. If your bar is oversize (31.8 mm) it can be hard to find a brake lever that fits, but it's certainly doable.

Having two levers might not be such a bad idea though, since it means you have a brake lever within reach from all hand positions. But I'm planning on installing just a 'top' brake lever on my fixie, so I can certainly see your point. You can also put a TT bar end lever at the bottom of the drop and use the cross top lever as well. That will look 'cleaner' than the usual road hood thing.

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  • I have the inline lever only setup on my fixie. It turned out that I can brake just fine from the "hoods" position with my thumb.
    – ojs
    Apr 14, 2020 at 8:54
  • How the heck do you do that?
    – Simon Lundberg
    Apr 14, 2020 at 8:55
  • Like this: imgur.com/a/opvb3Ew. The photo also shows how interrupter lever works without main lever.
    – ojs
    Apr 14, 2020 at 10:47
  • Do you actually get enough power that way? Doesn’t look very comfortable but I suppose it is better than changing grip on the bars.
    – Simon Lundberg
    Apr 14, 2020 at 10:49
  • It works just fine, certainly more comfortable than braking with narrow grip from the tops. A decently set up short reach dual pivot brake is far more powerful than comments on Internet would lead you to believe. I didn't really plan to use the lever this way, I just noticed that I had been doing it a lot without thinking.
    – ojs
    Apr 14, 2020 at 10:56

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