Bicycle Mechanics - Long reach calipers and levers

I have an older Peogeot frame currently set up as a fixie that I want to turn into a single speed with front and back breaks. I would like to try dual pivot breaks as I heard they are nice. I have Nitto promenade bars which I believe take a mountain bike type lever- I was thinking of getting Shimano BL-R440 levers.

My question is- will these levers work well with a long reach dual pivot calipers? I've heard that the shimano calipers require the sprung shimano levers to work nicely- Am I then out of luck in using these breaks with the promenade bars? is this also true of any dual pivot caliper such as the cheaper Tektro? Are there any better alternatives for setting up these bars with dual pivot breaks?

Any advise is appreciated- Thanks!

I use exactly those brake levers with Ultegra short reach calipers and they work great. I don't know why the long reach calipers would be any different. There's not realy a huge difference in caliper arm length between short and long anyway but the first thing I would do is absolutely confirm that the long reach calipers realy are long enough. I was looking at fitting long reach dual pivot calipers to a Giant CRX-1 that used v-brakes but had a mounting hole for caliper brakes. Anyway it was going to be very tight as to weather they would fit or not length wise.

Regards, Anthony

So the 'sprung' levers aren't really needed?

Which is the "sprung" shimano brake lever?

Can you find it in a catalogue as I've never seen it. As far as I knew the BL-R440 levers were the ONLY levers Shimano made for such use.

As I said I would confirm that the reach of the caliper was long enough first because even though there called "long" reach calipers their reach isn't as long as the reach on calipers used to be. Their realy only moderately longer than short reach calipers.

Regards, Anthony

From what I've been told the newest shimano levers- such as the Shimano Tiagra Aero Brake Levers (BRL23?) have a spring in them so they will snap back properly when released and that this is somehow esp. neccessary with shimano dual pivot brakes.

I'm going to my shop right now to measure the brake holes to be shure the 57mm calipers will reach. Thanks for the heads up on that.

I had a quick look at the Shimano site and it states that the BL-R440 levers are compatible with ALL dual pivot brake calipers and they work fine as far as I'm concerned. I couldn't find any info on those other levers on the Shimano site.

Regards, Anthony

I was looking at fitting long reach dual pivot calipers to a Giant CRX-1 that used v-brakes but had a mounting hole for caliper brakes. Anyway it was going to be very tight as to weather they would fit or not length wise.

Regards, Anthony

Actualy I just remembered that it was going to be a close thing if SHORT reach calipers were going to fit on my 2005 Giant CRX(FSR) frame. Long reach would fit fine however I still would measure to make sure. Clearances are a lot tighter these days than they used to be.

Regards, Anthony