I am running BB7s on the fat bike and would love to get rid of the metal lever blades and replace with something less cold-sinky. Wrapping is an option I suppose but I don't want to lose lever feel and I do run the bike in the warm season as well. Are there any good options for lever blades made from carbon or composite that can be swapped? If not, what are typical solutions for eliminating the metal contact point?
Carbon or composite brake levers blades
fly4130
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I am running BB7s on the fat bike and would love to get rid of the metal lever blades and replace with something less cold-sinky. Wrapping is an option I suppose but I don't want to lose lever feel and I do run the bike in the warm season as well. Are there any good options for lever blades made from carbon or composite that can be swapped? If not, what are typical solutions for eliminating the metal contact point?
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Right? There are little sleeves you can buy, but IME they still transmit too much heat. I cut off glove fingers and zip tie them. Xtr brakes come with carbon levers ironically, but suck in the cold due to mineral oil. I think there might have been a hope option at one time, but sure if that’s still available.
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Putting rubber onto metal works great?
I don't agree.
Sram used to make carbon v-brake levers. That's what I use. They pop up on eBay from time to time.
edit: eenie, meenie, minie.
Worth mentioning that they don't have exactly the right amount of cable pull for BB7's, so they feel a bit spongy relative to most levers, and they engage close to the bar. You can tune most of this out with fine adjustments. I did, and the rest I just got used to as a CODB relative to having cold fingers when braking.
What do you think doesn't work with this setup? They've been on two of my bikes for years, never slipped or done anything but keep my fingers warm.
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There's nothing insulative or isolative about rubber on metal.
Rubber insulates no matter what it's next to. Try picking up a hot metal pan with thick rubber gloves then try it with your bare hand and tell me there isn't a difference.
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Hold that hot metal pan with those rubber gloves for awhile and you might find that the rubber is getting awfully warm.
Rubber grips are cold in cold temps.
How thick is the heat shrink tubing you're using?
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Naw, rubber sucks IME. It might be better than aluminum, which is a great conductor, but it's still a lot of heat transmission, the metal blade beneath whatever you use has a tremendous ability to suck out all heat out of whatever is on top of the lever. The thinner the covering, the easier it is to suck heat out. I've tried this.
This is the whole reason we don't use rubber/silicone grips on aluminum bars in the winter. Foam grips help a lot. Foam grips on carbon bars help even more. You'd need some crazy NASA exotic material to prevent heat transmission over such a small distance, sitting on an aluminum lever.
The main problem with these is you have something thin sitting on a thick solid aluminum lever. It's just not going to insulate very much due to this.
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I found the silicon brake lever sleeves work quite well for me down to 20F. The thermal conductivity of silicon sleeve is 4 orders of magnitude lower than aluminum.
This is what I use : https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B000NI3L3C/ref=ya_aw_od_pi?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I don't have uninstalled tubing handy but it seems to be between 1.5 and 2 mm thick. It may not be as good as carbon levers but I don't notice a difference. And it's way better than bare aluminum.
heat shrink tubing...or self-fusing silicone tape ('air force tape' or 'rescue tape')
mylar foil strip [like from an emergency blanket]
cut a long thin strip of the foil, wrap your lever like a road bar tape job
slide a large enough heat shrink over that and shrink it down...or spiral wrap with silicone self-fusing tape
done right it won't be too thick,
probably as good as you can do....but....you should run pogies
this way the lever will retain a little heat that it robs from your fingers...
[the lever will actually warm up a bit under the pogies]
mylar foil strip [like from an emergency blanket]
cut a long thin strip of the foil, wrap your lever like a road bar tape job
slide a large enough heat shrink over that and shrink it down...or spiral wrap with silicone self-fusing tape
done right it won't be too thick,
probably as good as you can do....but....you should run pogies
this way the lever will retain a little heat that it robs from your fingers...
[the lever will actually warm up a bit under the pogies]
This is actually borne out of my use of pogies this year. I am wearing summer gloves and it is amazing. The issue is on longer rides I am losing the war of attrition to the cold. Once I get to the 4 hour mark I am starting to notice the cold and it gets exacerbated if I need to stop and do some out of pogie work. I don't get unride-ably cold hands, but I want to do what I can to push that point out as far as possible.
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2 things.
Carry a 2nd pair of gloves or thin large mittens (hard to find, but I've found a few). Put these in a pocket inside your jacket, ideally low and closer to your waist, so unzipping the zipper won't affect them much. Sometimes I just throw them down my base layer, which is tucked into my pants, so they aren't going anywhere. Pull these out and they are toasty warm from your body. You don't need to throw them down there at the beginning of the ride, but probably more than 10 minutes. You need to be dressing so you aren't sweating all over the place, but with that in mind, this works pretty great. THen just alternate as you need to for the rest of the ride. If you can't figure out how to dress to not sweat, you can do the same with a frame bag/pouch and throw them in there with a chem heater long before you need them. When it's real cold, I'll do this with some better mittens and pulling out 140F mittens mid-ride is bliss. Without handwarmers, this can run-out depending on the conditions, hands can get cold and it's just too much to keep them warm by alternating. See below. I'm all about the mitten backups too, I've found several thin extra large types that allow me to use controls with them on, far warmer than gloves and you can cram hand warmers in there.
The other thing is use the foot-warmer chem heaters, grip them to your handelbars, if it's rubber type grips, they'll stick pretty well on their own, but otherwise, it's not too hard to grip them to the bar while riding and they are much thinner and easier to deal with than hand-warmers. You need to directly heat your fingers IME and these help a lot. Do not throw them in cold after just opening, open them first, heat them in a pocket for 15 minutes, then use them. Otherwise, they tend to not always get over the "hump" of coming up to heat and warming your fingers. I find just throwing handwarmers into your pogies is generally not very effective...it takes a LOT and you gotta seal off all the gaps, etc. I suspect people that report this works for them have much better circulation than I. I use this method for races, when my hands start getting cold, etc.
Interesting. Prior to the pogies I was using some 45Nrth Nokken gloves. They were pretty ok, a good compromise on feel vs warmth. Pogies are way better and take me further into the ride, but there is less material between my skin and any surfaces. I now keep the Nokkens in the pack as emergency gloves, which is kind of silly as they are not insulated.
I need to explore the handwarmers I suppose. I have been resistant to them for irrational reasons. Some light mittens seems way better as well for extra gloves.
As for sweating, that's is whole 'nuther topic. Maybe I need a better vented softshell jacket. I just wear a 150 weight Merino base under a very light softshell and still get sweaty. Apparently sweating is my superpower.
I need to explore the handwarmers I suppose. I have been resistant to them for irrational reasons. Some light mittens seems way better as well for extra gloves.
As for sweating, that's is whole 'nuther topic. Maybe I need a better vented softshell jacket. I just wear a 150 weight Merino base under a very light softshell and still get sweaty. Apparently sweating is my superpower.
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Merino gets sweaty easier and stays wetter longer than synthetics. It simply traps more moisture. This creates the mechanism that keeps it a little warmer when wet. Synthetic also retains warmth when wet, but wool is a little better obviously. Wool is not my go to all the time though, because it can definitely work against you. Apart from that, opening up, unzipping, adjusting collars and other parts is critical. Also the head, ski helmets and goggles trap a ton of heat that raises your core temp IME. The helmet is nice sometimes, but again, that and balaclavas can work against you in warmer temps, your body starts looking for places to dump heat and moisture.
Tektro used to make some "carbon" looking v brake levers - I think they were called they were called MT 5.0 Carbon Eclipse. I have them on one of my snow bikes and like it a lot. On my other fatbike i have silicon brake lever sleeves on the levers, and they seem to be warmer than nothing, but not as nice as the (probibly fake, just plastic) carbon levers. YMMV. I would be you can still find the Tektro levers on ebay.
Some online retailers still have them listed, but as "backordered":
Tektro MT 5.0 UD Carbon Eclipse Linear Pull Brake Lever Set | Tree Fort Bikes
(This post reminded me I need to go find another set...
)
Some online retailers still have them listed, but as "backordered":
Tektro MT 5.0 UD Carbon Eclipse Linear Pull Brake Lever Set | Tree Fort Bikes
(This post reminded me I need to go find another set...
)Ohh, nice, I wasn't aware these existed! Just bought one, thanks!
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I have some Box components CF blade levers, same issue that Mike mentions. I would be willing to sell them, but know the leverage is pretty poor.
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