New Aero Brake Levers - brakes are spongy

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KneesUp

Guru
I finally got around to removing the old 'hooped cable' brake levers from my bike and fitting some aero ones. The old ones worked perfectly well, but the hoods were very uncomfortable - bare metal and not very large. In terms of comfort the new ones are leagues ahead - but unfortunately the brakes aren't as good.

I think the problem is that the cable is stretching the bar tape, so some of the lever movement is going toward bulging the tape rather than activating the brakes. I taped the outers under the tape down at three points (with masking tape - not the best choice?) before I put the bar tape on, and I pulled the bar tape tight.

The brakes work, but not with the sharpness they did. What should I do differently when I retape the bars? Should I have taped them with the brakes on, perhaps?
 

Rohloff_Brompton_Rider

Formerly just_fixed
Sometimes I've had this problem and when I've gone back and rechecked it's usually something gone array. In my case things I've missed have been; the outer cables haven't seated in the lever correctly (either a bit of the plastic has bunched up or the metal part of the outer has misshapen during cutting), I've put a ferrel on the outer and it's not needed one at the lever end or I've used an outer that shrinks under braking pressure, I.e., poor quality outer.

Hope that helps.
 

Smokin Joe

Legendary Member
If the cables are bulging the tape they are not seated correctly against the bar. masking tape is no good, use insulating tape. To get the cables nice and tight against the bars first secure them with a few cable ties, particularly inside the elbow of the bend and then permanently attach with the insulating tape. And as bromptonfb says, check the cable is seated properly.
 
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KneesUp

KneesUp

Guru
[QUOTE 3306506, member: 45"]The inners work because of the tension between them and the outers, so cable movement shouldn't make a difference to your sponginess.[/QUOTE]
When they bulge it's because the outer is trying to straighten out, which it does to some extent, therefore some of the 'pull' is lost because the cable then has a shorter route, if that makes sense?
 

Tim Hall

Guest
Location
Crawley
Are you using gear cable outer by mistake? Not a Good Idea, as it's not designed for braking loads. Gear cable outer (for indexed gears) has parallel wires, whilst brake cable is spiral wrapped.
 
OP
OP
KneesUp

KneesUp

Guru
Are you using gear cable outer by mistake? Not a Good Idea, as it's not designed for braking loads. Gear cable outer (for indexed gears) has parallel wires, whilst brake cable is spiral wrapped.
It's definitely the cable that is supposed to be used as brake cable - I think it may be that it's not sitting right in the lever because the brakes are ok if I use the interrupter levers.

That said it was a cheap cable set from Asda (Bell branded) - but the section of cable from the interrupter lever to each brake is fine, so most likely it's me not sitting it correctly. Shame as I've done an ok job (by my standards) on wrapping the bars!
 
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KneesUp

KneesUp

Guru
I'm going to have to redo the cables - the brakes were woeful today. I think I'll take the opportunity to put new cantilevers on too as the current pair don't even match, and the back one in particular is a bugger to adjust.

What is the best tape to hold the cabling in place under the bar tape? I would imagine duck/duct tape would do a decent job?
 
OP
OP
KneesUp

KneesUp

Guru
Bell cables is ok, not the best but ok, there's probably more bikes in the world using Bell than Shimano.
It's £4 for two brake inners and outers and two gear inners and outers at Asda, so I can see why (on both counts!)
 
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