Brake Lever Recommendations

Looking for recommendations for brake levers to fit to a pair of Nitto Risers; budget won't stretch to Paul E Lever territory and I'd have probably already bought a Dirty Harry if not for the massive clamp looking a bit ungainly, so anybody got any favourite relatively low profile levers?

Dredge. Currently have these tektro brakes on my fixed gear and hate the hood shape as it makes my fingers numb and there's no way of getting a flat bar->hood transition:

So I'm looking to replace them. So far I've found cane creek scr-5, sram s500 and trp RRL. Anyone care to comment on these or know of any others worth considering? Would go for the s500 if it was spring loaded as I only use a front brake and the other lever is just a handrest really.

Only tried the S500 - work great and the hood shape is nice but that is entirely personal preference. Had to ditch a shimano set with a similar shape to those tektro for exactly that reason.

You can address the spring loading issue by putting a short piece of cable in the unused lever and clamping it on the bars with the lever clamp. Running with that on my S900, works great.

RRL's ship with adaptors specifically designed for mounting to modern flatop bars - no complaints here...

Looking for brake levers that work with compact drop bars to give a nice flat bar to hood transition too and came across these from Condor. From the picture I can see they are made by Tekro with Condor branding although they look different to yours

@Alb excellent info, thanks! What bars are you using may I ask, and could you post a side pic of your setup? Do you have large or small hands? @cgg good tip, might try that if I go for the SRAMs. @pip7 I think those are what I have now, the pic I posted is of some other tektro model.

Those are rebranded Tektro RL340. Good basic levers.

@Squaredisk ah thanks for the id. @russmeyer so the rl340s are the tektro ones that you've had bother with? there doesn't seem to be many options out there other than the previous posts. i've seen extremely pricey campag levers in the past with a profile suited to compacts.

Have bigish hands (oo er). Got them on Salsa Cowbell's. I'll try and get a photo but I found this online that helps illustrate... https://plaza.rakuten.co.jp/bicyclediy/diary/201405250001/

I've used the Tektro R200 / Cane Creek SCRs for about 10 years now, various bar shapes. They are similar shape to the campag ones. I have smallish hands.

@pip7

I use Shimano R600’s on Soma Highway One bars. Good levers and have a nice “classic” look if that’s what you’re after?

@Egghead thanks, i'll take a look at both. @rab the levers are for a neo-retro build with nitto compacts. i'm keeping the downtube shifters for now until i upgrade so they could work well - thanks!

I’ve got a pair of these

Have been fitted but otherwise new for £100 if anyone fancies. For Cantis so I don’t know about cable pulls

@amey you need any silly Paul brakes or levers?

Hmmm, still looks like the hoods angle upwards a bit.

That looks pretty good! I think I have a few old ergos I could remove the guts from and achieve the ghetto version of those.

I was right - found a pair of broken cheap campy levers which I managed to disembowel. Found a jtek cable doubler which will allow me to use either lever to control the front brake, so no spring loading necessary. Will post a pic when I've got everything assembled.

https://youtu.be/ionNHq0xJuQ

Result!

3 Attachments

ooft! very tidy looking, nice work. i'll need to keep a look out for knackered ergos now.