Dual pull brake lever

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silverbear

silverbear

The Boy Who Never Grew Up
Jul 9, 2009
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My previous builds have been older cruisers with the foot brake and with a front cantilever brake added for safety's sake. Today I picked up two like new Huffy 26" cruisers... both six speeds with a free wheeling rear hub. Front and rear brakes are cantilever with two brake levers, one on the left and one on the right. Since both of these bikes are going to get 2 cycle HT motors and will be sold as quickly as possible, I'm a little stumped with the brake lever situation. It seems like it would be too crowded on the left grip for both a clutch lever and a brake lever. So a dual pull lever at the right grip operating both front and rear brakes would activate both brakes at one time. The down side of this is that all braking is going through one cable and if the cable broke or the lever broke there would be no brakes... so that doesn't seem too good. Whatever the answer it has to be pretty cheap and easy. Am I being overly worried about the dual pull lever and is it the only real option without getting in to drum or disc brakes (and even so, aren't they activated by a brake lever)? What have you guys done in this situation? Thanks in advance.
Silverbear
 
skyl4rk

skyl4rk

Member
Aug 14, 2008
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The dual pull lever has two separate cables. Each cable can be adjusted individually. It works well, although some have questioned having all your braking capacity in one hand.
 
silverbear

silverbear

The Boy Who Never Grew Up
Jul 9, 2009
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Mike Hunt said:
the one i have uses two separate cables. how is that possible, to have one cable pulling both brakes when they are in different physical locations?
Click to expand...
Of course, you are right. It isn't possible. Not sure what I was thinking as I wrote that post...

I would think then that having all brake control in one hand would necessitate having a good quality brake lever. I did break one the other day... it was a lever with a built in switch for an electric scooter. I used it so that I could control a brake light while activating the front caliper brake. I guess that's what got me to thinking about a lever breaking. Any suggestions for a good quality dual pull? I see several on ebay.
Silverbear
 
2door

2door

Moderator
Staff member
Sep 15, 2008
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Silver B,
I've thought of trying the dual pull lever but haven't made the move yet. I do what most do and have the clutch and front brake on my left. Over crowding hasn't been an issue with me. I'll admit, I have rather large hands with long fingers and I typically pull in and lock the clutch as I'm approaching a stop leaving my left hand free for the brakes. My concern about the dual pull is the adjustable bias between the front and rear brakes. I use the rears mostly for casual braking and get on the fronts when I'm serious about stopping. I'd want a lot of adjustment in a dual pull lever to give me the kind of braking I'm accustomed to.
Tom
 
Pablo

Pablo

Master Bike Builder & Forum Sponsor
Dec 28, 2007
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2door said:
Pablo,
You posted just before I did. Is there a good bias adjustment between the front and rear? How is that adjustment accomplished?
Tom
Click to expand...
It's REALLY easy to adjust. And amazingly does not seem to drift out of balance. You can set the bias however you want with the adjustment screws (see picture). Of course you can dial them roughly as you would normally if you change pads or something, then fine tune with the lever adjusters.

All our test bikes use these, it's not even something we debate about.

 
silverbear

silverbear

The Boy Who Never Grew Up
Jul 9, 2009
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northeastern Minnesota
Thanks everyone. This sounds like the way to go.
Regarding that single cable business in my first post... aside from pre-senility I realized that I had been looking at a fancy 20 inch kids bike earlier in the day which had a weird brake setup. The left brake lever was normal and the right one was odd in that there was a single cable coming out of the lever and a few inches later it went to a tubular deal which split it into two cables which then passed through a fitting at the gooseneck. Closer to the rear brake the two cables passed through another splitter and became one cable again before reaching the rear caliper. Huh? Figuring out why it was made that way has been bothering me and was in the back of me bb brain as I wrote that post. Got mixed up, I did. As 2-door would say, "Old Silverbear was napping". I was...
Silverbear
 
vballspen

vballspen

New Member
Jul 8, 2009
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florida
i have a dual brake lever on my jaguar and love it. you can adjust wich stops first or more. its very easy and very handy to have. keeps clutter to a minimum.
 
saetta

saetta

New Member
Jul 29, 2008
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Central Missouri
I am using the dual brake lever on both of my bicycles. This unique lever was the answer to my hand break issues. Glad that I bought them and would recommend them to others.
 
R

restapukin

New Member
Jul 22, 2009
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australia
My choices of control set up are governed by two considerations; making it as instinctively right-feeling for myself; and (2) keeping the setup real-conventional so as not to mislead any friends that might try the bike.

With this in mind I go for throttle and front brake on the right hand; rear brake on the left hand with the clutch above the brake & set for one or two finger operation.

Front brake to the left does not feel right to me. For what it's worth.

I found it pretty easy to get used to this setup, works well.

I don't like the idea of front & rear braking on the same lever. Makes me shudder. I don't even like it like that on xbox motorcycle games... roflmao
 
X

xlite

New Member
Jun 18, 2009
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ny,ny
restapukin said:
My choices of control set up are governed by two considerations; making it as instinctively right-feeling for myself; and (2) keeping the setup real-conventional so as not to mislead any friends that might try the bike.

With this in mind I go for throttle and front brake on the right hand; rear brake on the left hand with the clutch above the brake & set for one or two finger operation.

Front brake to the left does not feel right to me. For what it's worth.

I found it pretty easy to get used to this setup, works well.

I don't like the idea of front & rear braking on the same lever. Makes me shudder. I don't even like it like that on xbox motorcycle games... roflmao
Click to expand...
I agree. For ergonomic reasons and redundancy I went back to standard setup after playing with the single brake lever. For something as important as braking that oddball stuff scared me too. Maybe you can get used to it but my buddies didn't like it either.

Not to mention the extra work and expense. YMMV
 
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