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What sides are your brakes on??

Tim76 · 2022-02-02 13:34:42

Hi all, I recently bought a new a bike and noticed that the brake levers are on opposite sides to my old bike. To explain, on my old bike (a Giant) the left hand lever operates the rear brake and the right hand lever operates the front brake. To me this seems to work perfectly for countries where you drive on the left…

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#92 15-02-2022 11:06am
JMcL

Registered Users Posts: 2,219 ✭✭✭

Join Date: January 2004

Posts: 2157

I've been reasonable used to riding rental bikes in France over the years so had gotten used to left front (albeit having gotten a fright first time I grabbed the "rear" brake). Then about 5 years ago I was changing the group set on the road bike, and through being tired/rushing to finish managed to fit the cables front/left, right/rear and couldn't face unwrapping the bar tape to swap them over.
I've never had any issues since with the brakes being that way (they're the opposite on my other bikes) and can swap between the two comfortably. Signalling hasn't been a problem either. My commute home involves a fairly steep gradient on a dual carraigeway finishing with a roundabout where I have to turn right, and I can manage the braking/signalling fine regardless. That said, I've developed the muscle memory to shift my reasonably substantial bulk back when braking, and extremely rarely grab the brakes, so I would agree that locking the front brake inadvertently while going downhill probably wouldn't end well

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