cyccommute 

Pictures are worth 1000 words (which won’t keep me from adding words anyway)


This is a long pull which has close to 35mm distance between the pivot and anchor


This one is a short pull with about 25mm (maybe a bit less) between the pivot and anchor.



You can see how much of a difference there is between the two in the pictures but it’s harder to recognize when you are looking at a pile of brake levers.

cyccommute 

Long pull drop bar levers are very rare. They are out there but they are seldom used.

I’ve tried Travel Agents in the past and not been too please with their performance. I’d rather just use the proper lever or stay with cantilever rather than shift over to linear brakes.

A couple of my wife’s bikes are conversions from road bars to flat. They have dual pivot brakes so I’ve had to address this problem a few times.

Gyro_T

Oh heck, I have had a couple sources, including Paul Components tell me mechanical disks "generally" use short pull.

djb

don't forget, "mechanical disk" just means that cables are used, but there are "road" mechanicals and "mountain bike" mechanicals. When thinking of ordering my Gevenalles, I really had to read properly various sources to be sure about my mtb bb7's.
I've kind of forgotten most of what I read 5 or 6 years ago on the subject, but it wasnt too hard to get a bunch of reliable , similar sources to confirm it all.

djb

thank you kindly, that's very clear.

djb

Gevenalle used to have a model where you could change the pull from short to long, kinda neat, but I'm not sure it exists anymore. When looking at their site yesterday, it appeared that most of the models to be chosen have an "either-or" option for long/short pull.

cyccommute 

Depends on the brake. With Pauls, the arm can be changed so that a different lever can be used. Others just use a shorter arm. That said, I would say that mechanical discs are more likely to be long pull considering the history of their use. Mountain bikes have used disc brakes for longer and in greater numbers. Road bikes are catching up but they have only widely used disc brakes for about 10 years.

cyccommute 

There are lots and lots of levers from the mid90s that have the ability to use either. That was when the mountain bike industry was transitioning from cantilever to linear. The Avid Speed Dial is mostly an answer to the short vs long pull problem but there are a whole lot of other ways to do it.

Gyro_T

I found these old MTB levers in a box and they appear to be long pull (thanks for the pics). They seem to work fine. Those are Rivendell Tosco bars and as wide as the Jones bars I am putting on my Fargo which has Avid BB7 mech. disks. I am going to ride the Rove for a while and make a final decision soon. I have learn quite a bit on this thread and thank you all for the help. It will be interesting if the Paul short pull levers I have on the way will work with those BB7s.

garryg

Thank you for that explanation. I too am on the same boat as the OP and you helped me understand long versus short. I am going with Avid sd 7 which are adjustable.

djb

interesting about the speed dial, I never really understood what that was. I have a set in a box of stuff taken off my Troll when it was in mountain bike mode.

The Gevenalle stuff I was referring to are drop bar levers that must have had the ability to easily reposition the anchor point to have different cable pull (which i assume this is what happens with the flat bar lever models that can do both)


oh, for the op
linear= v brakes = long pull
I remember being confused by this term at first trying to figure out long pull vs short pull, as linear on its own would get used.

cyccommute 

I haven’t seen drop bar levers that can be changed but linear brake drop bar levers are rare anyway. Tektro makes a switchable brake lever that is really clever. The knob at the bottom of the brake turns a pin that is round on one side and flat on the other. Turning the knob to the flat side lets you slide the cable anchor into a channel for whichever pull you want to use (see instructions). It’s a simple, elegant solution to the problem. There are loads of others around some which work better than others. Shimano, for a time, had plastic spacers which worked well until you lost one.

I tend to use “linear” over V-brake because “V-Brake” is the Shimano trade name.

djb

Levers that can do both would be handy for some situations. Thanks.

Tourist in MSN

Really?

I can see the convenience for initial purchase, but once installed I do not anticipate any changes. That said, I did switch my heavy touring bike from canti brakes to V brakes. Used travel agents for that.

Only once did I have a problem with travel agents. Riding all day in rain on a gravel road, enough mud and grit was thrown onto the rear travel agent that my brakes would not release. I had to stop, get off the bike, pull the arms apart, and get rolling again. If I again used the brake, repeat.

djb

Ya, typed that but realized that it would really only be if you changed from road to mtb brakes with different pull....probably very unlikely.