Originally Posted by DynamicD74
Okay, color me stupid, but are those brake levers I see in the middle of that picture? One of the things that has kept me from buying a new road bike is because I prefer those "suicide," brake levers. If those are brake levers, that opens up a whole new realm of possibilities for me!
Yeah, I think I saw someone around here call them "interrupter" brake levers yesterday. That bike probably has two sets of brake levers. Down in the drops are brifters, combo brake/shifters. The cables coming out of those are the shifting cables. The brake cables are run along the handlebar under the tape, you can kind of see a bulge under the tape there. The cables lead into those little levers up top, through and then out to the brakes. The result is that pulling on either of the brake levers pulls on the cable to the brake.
NOTE I've never set one up or even looked carefully at one, other than that picture, so I could be wrong, but that's my understanding going from some comments I've seen here and that picture.
EDIT: AHA! Looking a touch more carefully at the picture, I see that those brake levers are very clever indeed. If I'm seeing correctly, they're holding the end of the sheath, and pulling on them moves the sheath. The cable going on to the end is held still, so pulling on the sheath also applies the brake. Neat, and simple!