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Setting up a new bike for my wife atm and she is struggling with the brakes - she's pretty casual with the cycling but has recently started a 15 mile road commute. Problem is riding on the hoods, she can't brake with any force as she has quite small hands.
The calipers are promega cable disks - I've used them myself and they're average (although they do stop the bike for me). The lever is a sora STI shimmed out with the thickest spacer, and this hasn't made a difference. Have fitted some cross-top levers which have been helpful.
So I'm wondering if a better cable caliper will make a significant difference, or if we should just get a set of hydros, or another lever, or something else. I have some spyres on my caadx and I don't rate them much above the promegas, tbh, so unsure if this will change much if the problem is manipulating the lever.
My 8yr old obviously has small hands and we found that cables make a huge difference....
(His brakes are hydraulic but his shifters and seat post are cables)
The difference doesn't feel like much to me... until I compare side by side.... but it actually makes a big difference for him...
There are two main things I do ...
1) Decent teflon inners and coated outers
2) His frame is smaller so bends are tighter so I try and give a bit less of a sharp bend...
His Thompson seat post for example has a way longer bend than I'd use... and uses Jagwire outer and teflon inner but its silky smooth and i can easily use my small finger to depress it... this is a pretty poor release (certainly for the price) ... and known to be a pain for adults... but just changing the cables and adding a bit of extra length making the bends less tight it actually depresses really easy... we do the same on his shifters as well... and I change cables more frequently so I ended up buying 10m of outer ... which also gets used for me... but works out much cheaper and more convenient...
I'd expect the same will apply to the brakes... if you transmit the pull they are adequate but the problem might be more actually transmitting the pull against friction....
Thanks Steve, hadn't considered the cables - they'll be basic ones so something to check.
Shimano brake levers have the pivot in an odd place which makes them poor for smaller people - try changing the shifters/ brake levers to SRAM they're much better for those of smaller hand.
Thanks Steve, hadn't considered the cables - they'll be basic ones so something to check.
You can't really lose out.... as unless you go hydraulic you'll need to buy new ones at some point anyway...
I also do straight runs with no exposed cables.... but my finding is crap cables make sub-optimal levers worse...
The weird thing was that without load they feel fine... I quite honestly drove myself mad trying to get his progressively worse shifter to work easier... it got to the point it was a struggle for me....and I actually at this point has swapped shifters about even stripped, cleaned and regressed them... swapped mech etc. and was ready to give in ....
The cable felt fine by itself....
I know a lot of people say it's all rubbish but my guess is they are all blokes with bigger hands...
Although I don't NEED them on my shifters I now use them anyway as they do feel better when compared side by side and the difference in price is really not much...
Charlie the Bikemonger sells some cables for discs that make a huge difference, I've got them on my MTB and commuter, both of which have BB7s.
You might still be limited by hand size though; my Mrs has little hands and has to brake in the drops, she just can't get any decent squeeze on the levers from the hoods.
Run the cables slacker too, most people have the bite point far too soon. My road bike has calliper brakes (I.e. should be considerably spongier than disks) but I still have the bite point almost at the bars and its fine.
Ive got big hands but the principle is the same, its far more fatigueing trying to squeeze a large object than the finger pressure it takes when your fist is almost closed.