Why some road bike manuf. put rear brake cable guide on the Driveside?
 

Specialized, Trek, others...... are putting the rear brake cable guide on the drive side of the top tube (near the jhad tube) instead of the taditoional non-drive side.

This allows a clean cable line from drive side to non-drive side under the top tube, but it also forces the right brake lever cable to do a sharp bend towards the cable guide by passing the housing to the drive side of the head tube....

WHY? Is this just suddenly fasionable or is it actually a cleaner cable line?

It would work out for me, I run my brakes reversed.

but really I have no clue why they are doing that

Maybe those bikes were meant for the British market?

because running the rear brake off the left lever makes more sense.

especially if you ride a motorcycle too.

sheesh.

Does it eliminate some cable/frame rub on CF bikes?

Yeah, I'm of the right/front opinion myself.

The dirve side placement of the housing stop actually creates more housing rub on the frame. I wondered why they did this to my Tarmac but my rep had no answers for me.

Says who? ;)

Maybe the answer is a simple as that week, the apprentice made a copy of the diagram and he's reading it backwards! :D

motorcycle riders, aussies, kiwis, sheldon brown.

If you think about it, your front brake does most of your stopping. Your right hand has the most power, dexterity and control. You would want your better hand to do your braking. This obviously only applies if you were right handed.

^I've thought about this a lot lately. I've come to the conclusion that it doesn't matter. After a few hours on the bike, your left hand will become just as good as your right at braking.

There are two scenarios (in the US) where it makes sense to flip it.

One is so that you can make hand signals and brake at the same time, but that's not the safest idea anyway, so throw that out.

The second is if you ride a motorcycle as well, and don't want to get confused between the two. In this case, I would say it makes sense to flip them. The rest of the reasons Sheldon gives (I don't remember them all right now), I don't really agree with.

In order to make good, smooth cable runs on most (new) bikes, you are almost forced to run the front brake on the left. The angles can get too sharp otherwise.

My .02 on a contentious issue.

This is just an observation and may have nothing to do with the real reason ...

When I'm working on a bike (cabling everything up and such), the rear brake cable (along the left side) is almost the only thing that I can't rig up exclusively while standing on the right side of the bike. I generally have to walk around the bike stand to do that one piece of cable up/ setup.

The rear brake cable routed along the right side would alleviate me from having to go to the other side of the bike.

that's just me thinking out loud ...

There's really not that much power, dexterity or control involved in braking IMO. But if you have to downshift at the same time, with the same hand, things get more complicated. That's why I think it's preferrable to have the rear shifter and "redundant" brake lever (rear) both in right hand side.

--J

Sounds like you may have something there in the way of answering the original question...

I have to say that I also run front/right. I like it much, I just do it's hard to explain other than all the reasons given above. Down-shifting is a bit more tricky, but only slightly (with STI that is). But I got used pretty fast to stop braking 1/2 a second to down shift in the middle of my braking motion. Would I go back? Probably not. But I say.. try it out, see how you like it... at worst you only wasted a couple housings. Not the end of the world unless you're using super high end titanium housings ;)

For me, especially when racing, I prefer to be able to shift and brake simulateously. It's a little difficult to do if both are actuated by the same device under control of only one hand.

I believe Danno may have the answer. Sheldon Brown wrote: