Cyclocross - How do you adjust Interupter brake levers

I have a specialized singlecross tricross bike with specialized interupter cross levers as well as drop handlebar racing bike levers on V brakes. The drop levers pull fine with the right amount of slack and the brake pads cannot be moved much closer to the rim. But the problem is that the cross levers have too much slack and feel spongy with no braking until the lever is pulled right up to the handlebar.

Given that the interupter lever pushes on the brake cable and has no adjusting barrel that I can find, how do I adjust the interrupter levers properly without affecting the set up of the other brakes?

standard cross interrupter levers are not made to work with v brakes. v brakes pull about twice as much cable as standard cantilevers and calipers. did a shop set this up for you? if so, demand your money back (on the cross levers, not the bike).

the drop levers on the stock singlecross are designed to work with v brakes, and probably ONLY v brakes. which means switching to cantis isnt going to solve your problem either, as your drop levers wont function properly.

some brake levers can be adjusted to work with both v brakes and standard cantis, but the only ones i've ever seen are for straight handlebars. i've also never seen interrupter levers for v brakes, but that doesn't mean they don't exist.

finally, you COULD switch the drop levers to standard road levers, keep the interruptors and use a travel agent adapter. (http://www.amazon.com/Nashbar-Travel-Agent-Inline-Adapter/dp/B000R2LQEK) this is the cheapest way i can think of to allow you to keep the interruptors.

basically you need to:
a)get rid of the inerrupter levers (i've had them and i never used them, so that's what i'd do)
b)get new drop levers and canti brakes
c)get new drop levers and a travel agent.

Specialized set it up that way. Do a search on the web for specialized tricross singlecross. They come with v brakes, cross interupter levers and roadbrakes. Sheldon explains that v brakes can work with road brakes, if you have the right ones http://www.sheldonbrown.com/canti-direct.html. Anyway it is not the brakes or the road brakes that are a problem, they work well.

My problem is I cannot think how to adjust the cross interupter levers without harming the setup of the road brakes. Are there any specialized tricross singlecross users out there?

thanks

i did search, and none of the singlecross bikes i found had interrupter levers on them. because they're not compatible with v brakes.

as you can see from their site:
http://www.specialized.com/bc/SBCBkModel.jsp?spid=32208

there are no interrupter levers on the stock model and no mention is made of them in the features. the place where you bought the bike (bike shop, online store, whomever) added these levers, which means they should fix the problem for you.

i'm familiar with sheldon's article, and he's reiterating my point. your drop levers are the "special matching brake levers" that he mentions in the first section. your inline levers, however, do not match.

Ok thanks, I stand corrected. I'll go and give the shop sh*t. Funny I have seen the bikes in two shops in the UK and they all have brakes set up that way.

OK. Here's an update for anyone subscrbed to this post. Simply adjusting the brake pads (so that they are <1mm away from the rim) seemed to do the trick. The cross levers don't have the modulation of the drop levers can lift the front brake can make the back wheel lift off the ground, which is the maximum breaking needed. Sorry for the roundabout postings, I take back any suggestions that this setup is at fault. Lots of people in the UK have the bike set up with cross levers successfully. I am unused to v-brakes and modern rims that are super-truable.