Originally Posted by
cango
I understand the lack of compatibility between brands, brake pull, etc... but that being said I have seen brifters on flat bar bikes. I have also seen mountain style brake levers on the flat portion of road bars in addition to the brifters. How they got this to work, I don't know.
Interrupter brakes are different from mountain bike levers. They may
look like mountain bike levers but they function differently. The pull ratio is for a short pull brake rather than a long pull brake that is most common on mountain bikes. They split the brake cable housing and work by pushing on the housing during braking. Mountain and road levers
pull on the inner cable while keeping the housing still.
I saw a video recently on Youtube where a bike mechanic explained that very thing - people want to turn their road bikes into gravel bikes but they can't because there is not enough room to fit the tires. There is just no room for anything but the skinny road racing tires.
Different issue.
I thought thats kind of dumb as well, it limits the versatility of the bike. I have an old Trek 750 Multitrack and it as 32mm tires but can take all the way up to something like 45 or something crazy. It has tons of room.
Versatility is nice but specialization has it’s place. A road bike is generally built for going fast on smooth surfaces. A mountain bike is built for going fast on very unsmooth surfaces. Put one on the other’s surface and it doesn’t do what it is designed to do very well...particularly the fast part but neither is all that comfortable to ride on the other’s surface. Trying to make a bike that is versatile enough to ride on pavement and on rocks ends up with a bike that is frustrating to ride on both. It won’t go that fast on the road and it doesn’t handle technical terrain all that well. Its versatility is not limited but its function is.