Inline Barrel Adjusters. Why are they so badly designed?

[wafter]

Yes, mine work perfectly. I must have got them when I bought the brakes. To be honest I was never really sure how they actually worked. So a few months ago, when I was putting new brake pads in the rear, I actually took one apart and had a look.

I shouldn't really need them, as I've got interrupter levers (or whatever you call them, "cross tops"?) which have adjusters. But I'm used to them now.

I know all the instructions say not to use them to move the brake calliper, use the actual pad adjusters.. But I do use them to take the last bit of slack out of the cable, and maybe just put a little bit of tension in there too. I stop once I've seen the calliper move a tiny bit. I'll use them to "fine tune" the brakes. Keep turning the pad adjusters till I get rub, then back off a notch. But then tighten them up a little more with the inline adjusters. I think I can probably get some adjustment that is between the notches of the BB7s.

I think the term you're looking for is "relay brake levers"

Good to hear you've found them to work well; I have no experience of using these with discs but given the brand I assume that's the adjustor's primary intended purpose.

Due to the long cable pull of my V-brakes the adjustors have limited range and I can only account for about half the pad wear before I have to reset them and pack the pads out with washers; but it's great to be able to tweak them on the fly to keep the lever bite point consistent and infinitely better solution than no adjustment at all.