Polo Bikes

The one thing I don't understand is how people can be happy with a brake lever set up as it is in the Marino picture. The lever is completely out of line for your fingers and ends up trapping your ring finger.

Yarly. It's why so many mtb'ers have about a half inch gap between the edge of the grip and the brake lever clamp.

I completely agreee. For the best mechanical advantage you need the end of the lever to be inline with your index and ring fingers, and not trap any other fingers. If you're using 3-4 fingers on your brake (which is the only way you're not trapping fingers) you're losing bar control.

I'm tempted to go front hydraulic disc only so I can potentially go to 1-finger braking, but I'd need a rotor guard and I want to see what happens with stoppie/endo-induced floppy rear wheel rules. At the moment I see lots of 'wheel throwing', from front-brake onlyers which I thought was illegal, but seems permitted when you're a top player.