Awful braking ability after expensive bicycle fitting

[531colin]

Well, I see the OP hasn't re-posted, so we may be talking to ourselves........
Notwithstanding that, I could have saved him £140.....see the bike fitting link in my sig.....
Also if the Dawes has cantilever brakes, its likely they are not set up to best advantage....see this thread....https://forum.cyclinguk.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=57410
If your brakes are set up properly, you can lift the back wheel braking from the hoods......this makes braking from the drops a bad idea, because its easier to get your weight back when your hands are on the hoods, and so you can stop quicker keeping both wheels on the ground.

[Brucey]

This thread ............ but I didn't get much sympathy.

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=104490

IIRC part of the trouble was that the genius that specced your bike may have fitted NSSLR levers with Gen 1 DP brakes. This results in pretty feeble braking, worse yet if the brake blocks are in the bottom half of the slots in the caliper. The usual refrain is 'the brakes are alright from the drops but not good enough from the hoods'.

It might be that there is similar problem in this case too, in which case there is no mystery at all.

cheers

[Mick F]

IIRC part of the trouble was that the genius that specced your bike may have fitted NSSLR levers with Gen 1 DP brakes. This results in pretty feeble braking, worse yet if the brake blocks are in the bottom half of the slots in the caliper. The usual refrain is 'the brakes are alright from the drops but not good enough from the hoods'.

You remember correctly, but not fully.

The brake performance were fine except for two things.

One, the STIs were terrible due to the poor design of the levers. I don't care what callipers were on the end of them, they were terrible to operate. I had a great deal of difficulty in reaching adequately except from the drops. I moved their positions a couple of times, but they were terrible anywhere.

Two, the brake callipers were bendy. Any mechanical advantage you may have had was bent away.
Despite these two issues, I could stop fine so long as I could get to the drops.

Maybe a third issue to do with the bendiness of the callipers. The bendiness made for a continual weak braking down very long very steep hills, and I blew out the front tyre from heat build-up on a couple of occasions. Since changing to decent brake callipers, the braking is better and stronger, so I can pulse better to relieve the heat build-up.

Main issue I had was the terrible STIs.
Bad ergonomics. Very bad, and I was glad to get rid of them.

[Mick F]

Well, I see the OP hasn't re-posted, so we may be talking to ourselves........

Note his username and the fact he hasn't been back.

[JohnW]

I never, ever use the drops on my bike but cannot abide straight bars .. so the drop lowers never see my hands, i ride on the hoods and the inner upper bar sections only ...... am i alone in this ......

No landsurfer, you're not alone in this - I've ridden that way all my adult life. Occasionally I'll go down on the drops, in a real bad headwind, but very, very rarely. I'm not alone in this either. Each to their own.

[pga]

We are all victims of 'progress'. Much easier these days to replace the stem but changing bars produces the problem identified. Where do we position the levers. In the old days with Cinelli, or even GB, bar and stem, we aligned the bottom of the lever with a straight edge along the bottom of the bars. Even then some mechanics would not do this and put the levers too high (the cowboy position) or too low.

My wife and I have winter/touring bikes with secondary levers on top of the bars - very useful in the Alps.

[NATURAL ANKLING]

Hi,

I never, ever use the drops on my bike but cannot abide straight bars .. so the drop lowers never see my hands, i ride on the hoods and the inner upper bar sections only ...... am i alone in this ......

No landsurfer, you're not alone in this - I've ridden that way all my adult life. Occasionally I'll go down on the drops, in a real bad headwind, but very, very rarely. I'm not alone in this either. Each to their own.

I must be....on a shade under 170 miler I spent 95 % on the drops

[nez]

No, the pivot will be the same, but the handlebar above and below it will be different.

Personally, I don't like the STI shape and the pivot point, and I have big hands.

That’s you and Donald Trump then.

[NATURAL ANKLING]

Hi,
Whats that Mick F?
https://www.wikihow.com/Measure-Hand-Size
Span and Length would probably be an indicator of ability to reach on brake levers.

[niggle]

My hands are average but my fingers are short and stubby. I never get on with STIs anything like as well as Ergos, and the newer ones seem worse if anything, but they can be improved somewhat by adding the reach adjusting shims. Currently I mainly use Versa 11 brifters with my Alfine 11 hub and these are fine for braking, though I must say the gear shifting lever does have a rather long throw. The Versas are modified Microshift brifters, which are available for most flavours of Shimano gear trains and at a lower price than Shimano equivalents as well.

[Mick F]

Hi,
Whats that Mick F?
https://www.wikihow.com/Measure-Hand-Size
Span and Length would probably be an indicator of ability to reach on brake levers.

I have big hands and long fingers and my hands are strong.
STIs are horrible, or mine were.

Now have Tektro brake levers on Moulton, and they are clones of Campag brake levers.
Excellent.

[busb]

"As anyone cycling in London knows, you need really good brakes! "

That'll be flat bars then!

I ditched drops a good 20yrs ago & fitted straight bars. My chronic neck pain disappeared. It wasn't the stem length nor handlebar height that was the problem but possibly more to do with the narrower bar width. I also used Gripshifts that seem to have fallen out of favour. My newish disc equipped hybrid has low rise straight bars that are cut down but with room enough for standard dual-clamp grips, brake clamps & separate MTB style Shimano gears levers with their own clamps. These are still wider than most drops. The advantage is the brake levers are always to hand so applying brakes is far faster than most positions on drops. I get your point entirely but many will disagree!

Last year, I bought a so-called endurance bike that has drop bars with hydo discs with STI levers that took me a couple of weeks to get used to. The options for a fast, light & fun bike with straight bars were rather limited hence returning to drops. Like many, I tend to ride on the flat part some of the bar some of the time & hoods particularly when approaching junctions or when I anticipate needing to brake. I do ride on the drops when I want to assume a fairly aero position. Maybe I'm fortunate but applying brakes from either the hoods or drops is intuitive though the technique is very different. I still find the hybrid more comfortable & the braking more powerful & easier. This thread reminds me that going with hydro discs on both bikes, despite the weight penalty was the right decision (for me at least). I find rim brakes archaic. The force needed to stop rather than merely scrub off some speed is less with discs. At least modern road dual-pivot rim brakes are not as useless as single pivot versions used to be!

I have read that bike fitting often does more harm than good because unlearning well-established habits can be difficult for some for starters. I'm not convinced that the prescribed position suits everyone. Too much emphasis on power output & not enough on comfort & in this case, safety. As has been suggested, I'd return for a refit!

[Vorpal]

I have read that bike fitting often does more harm than good because unlearning well-established habits can be difficult for some for starters. I'm not convinced that the prescribed position suits everyone. Too much emphasis on power output & not enough on comfort & in this case, safety. As has been suggested, I'd return for a refit!

Someone who knows what they are doing should ask questions about the style of riding, preferred handlebar height, etc., and not give a touring cyclist a fitting for a racing cyclist or vice versa.

[Samuel D]

For brake lever shape, I have found the Shimano BL-R400 to be an improvement on all STI levers I have used. The braking is more comfortable and potentially stronger from both the hoods and the drops. (I have long, thin fingers and a decent grip strength.)

I wouldn’t cart drop handlebars around the countryside unless I spent plenty of time on the drops. For that to be viable the bars have to be high enough to reach the drops comfortably at speeds below escape velocity.

Higher bars have the added benefit of more safely and easily allowing you to brace yourself against braking forces. This bracing is the main difficulty of braking hard. There are times when your arms have to support most of your body weight (failure to achieve this is the main reason for doing a header over the bars, although the rider might instead think it was from braking too hard). That can only happen with relatively straight arms reaching mostly forward rather than down.

[niggle]

One often overlooked factor, IMO, in the 'straight bar v drops' decision is the angle of the hands when gripping the bars. I have a history of hand pain and when I was referred to 'the hand man' he advised that I avoid using straight bars on bicycles and motorcycles, and pick swept back bars instead. MTB flat or riser bars are far too straight for me, turning my forearms and wrists to an uncomfortable angles, so on flat bar bikes I normally either replace the bars with swept back 'comfort'' bars or fit bar ends. Drop bars offer de facto fully swept back bars at two heights.

With drop bars I normally grip the hoods, occasionally the drops, almost never the tops. With the straight bar plus bar end combo I spend a lot of time on the bar ends (I have wrapped one pair of bar ends with cork gel bar tape which works very nicely IMO), but I miss the ability to brake and change gear in that position, unlike with swept back bars, or drop bars with brifters, where the brake and gear controls are always 'to hand' in the hand position/s I use.

Ergon GP grips do make the straight bar position a bit better, but if bar ends are fitted with the Ergons then I still reach for the bar ends a lot of the time. I have tried figure of eight style 'trekking' bars but found myself mainly using the outside of the bars, where no controls are attached and the bars were on the wide side for me anyway. H bars look interesting, offering the same angle as a comfort bar but with an additional forward aero position- can you fit cross top type additional brake levers on that section?