puchfinnland

Our first test ride was nothing but exciting,
Little Nelli just could not reach the levers and was very afraid to ride the bike.
standard levers are about 85-90 reach and little hands just cant reach them.


they did make childrens levers...I have several pairs in the post right now!

But right now She needs to have levers so we can go riding!!!

Well into my collection of precious junk parts to see what I can do....

puchfinnland

Hmm these old levers look like good candidates for what I have in mind.

the Weinmann units are short in height, I tried to rebend the lever but it was not going to work

then I found these old Shimano levers and note the pivot pin is not the same as the mount pin....



OK lets get this rolling, the parts to save and the parts to discard

puchfinnland

Well truth be told I made one before I thought of sharing this with the forum.

here is the before and after of what I did,take note of the modification of the weinmann part, there is also a brass sleeve in there that is peened over to hold the weinmann part together, the old shimano lever had a plastic bushing that was cut down to 8.5mm and redrilled to 5mm



holding them together I cut and filed the second lever to match

puchfinnland

Now having both these levers in front of me I came to the conclusion that they are pretty
BORING and dull


So Boring is what was needed to fix this situation


Now this is getting really boring.

puchfinnland

here is the finished (and tested) results, I will go to the LBS in the morning and see if we can find some new hoods to cut down,


The reach is 60mm


comparison with some adult levers




and my large hands

4Rings6Stars

Looks great. Do they still pull enough cable?

Sixty Fiver

Brilliant... begs the question why modern road levers do not come with an adjustable reach like mtb levers do.

1 Lugnut

Necessity is the 'mother of invention'. Nice work...!

puchfinnland

A happy Nelli who can reach the levers!


Compare the lever sizes




I tuned the wheels and brakes in and the bike has really powerful brakes.

repechage

I had a similar problem.
My son wished to go riding with me, to do so effectively he was going to need a road bike.
24" wheels were a requirement, as was no carbon. (later yes, when he can take care of stuff)
Nobody stocks these things.
Index shifting was necessary too, and finding a classic to be reworked was just not happening.
New offerings with integrated shift/brake levers were not going to work either. His hands are not large enough to paddle the shifters.
One shop I visited advised he had the same problem, and he fitted Shimano Ultegra Electronic with time trial pushbuttons for his daughters...
Hmmm. I'm just not a Shimano kind of guy, so until Athena EPS arrives...
Found a suitable bike, had to order it.
Brake levers were totally wrong, way too big and bulky.
The solution I chose was use inline levers from a cyclocross bike with reach adjustment.
Then attack the lever bodies at the handlebar contact point to reduce the reach and ditch the hoods.
Now he can brake from the tops, hoods and drops.
He likes the tops or the drops.
I test rode the bike and I have to say the dual pivot brakes with this set up work very well.
I upgraded the dual pivots to Campagnolo also and that helped even more.
Now to the crank set upgrade.... looks like 175 mm Compact Ultratorque to 150 mm might be the ticket.

thirdgenbird

https://www.parktool.com/blog/calvins...-dura-ace-7900

https://www.campagnolo.com/jsp/en/tech/id_3.jsp

https://www.theroaddiaries.com/2009/1...force-and-red/

Drillium Dude 

Excellent solution - and of course I am partial to the "boring" treatment you gave these

Very nice first drillium job - and I bet Nelli appreciates it, too!

DD

Nakedbabytoes

Again, AWESOME! I love how happy she looks!

puchfinnland

Excellent solution - and of course I am partial to the "boring" treatment you gave these

Very nice first drillium job - and I bet Nelli appreciates it, too!


DD- this was a quick and dirty drillium job, I think the drill was a bit too big. I did it at 10pm!

Drillium Dude 

^ No way - they look great with the large holes and the spacing is spot-on

I've done some of my best drilling work at 10pm:



Fun stuff! I hope you are able to get some hoods that will fit the newly-engineered levers. Those would top it all off very nicely.

DD

Henry III

That's quite the McGyver'ism way of making some levers. Check out Cane Creek as they make cheap decent hoods in black and tan.

Veloh

If no rubber hoods fit well, you can make some custom leather ones by sewing them in the shape of the levels.

ianstew

nice work!

puchfinnland

HEY! these are temporary untill the goods show up next month.
I will most likely leather the bars but will do this after the bike has its final setup.

I am happy to let them go to another forumite if they need them after that!

ftwelder

Nice work!

ThermionicScott 

Some awesome re-engineering work here! Looks like you hid an "after" picture in your first post, since we didn't yet know what to look for.

lostarchitect 

Well done, sir. I tip my hat to you.