My Mercian is outfitted with Weinmann Vainqueur centerpulls mated to Weinmann Vainqueur levers. While I like the braking power, I can't stand the levers:



The curve of the lever is too pronounced, they extend too far forward from the bars, and the hoods are painful. I have two other pair of period-appropriate levers which I have in my parts bin to try, neither of which I've ever tried before:

- MAFAC Competitions
- Campy NR

But before I try them, I was curious if anyone has used either of these mated to Weinmann centerpulls. Any drawbacks? What's the general concensus on these, comfort-wise?

Campy NR's are excellent for performance, durability and comfort. Mafacs are except too but not as comfy. They're very tough.

The NR are very nice, the Mafacs have even more reach than the Weinmanns.

When You change the levers, you may have to change out the front and rear brake cable hangers to the quick release kind.

Really? I'll have to compare them directly. By reach, you mean the distance away from the bars (length of the hoods)?

Just holding the Campy brake and hood the way you would when riding in the hoods, they do feel good!

Good point. Yes, I will have to do that. Right now they're Weinmann hangers with nice barrel adjusters (overbuilt IMO), but no quick release since the QR is built into the lever.

Personally I would have liked to put on a complete set of Campy NR side pulls but this bike requires long reach brakes.

Could someone post a picture of these? I didn't know that they existed.

EDIT: I was thinking that there was a nut for the stirrup cable with QR's. I have a seen plenty of the hangers w/QR's.

Okay, I like the idea of using the Campy NR levers. Of course, I would also have to replace the gum hoods, as the current ones are generic, and cracked anyway.

I will have to remove the anodizing and sand out the road rash before putting them on this bike, and I was wondering if the cable pivot built into the lever can be removed for this process? I can't figure out how to remove it, and it seems like it was installed by shaping the lever around it during manufacture. I'm referring to the round piece in this photo (not my lever, but I wish it were):

I just did this recently and followed Drillium Dude's advice. No, you do not need to remove the pivot for the cable end. The Jetsco anodizing remover I used does not hurt the steel.

Is this what you're thinking of, Tim?

There are variations of this concept that were made for mounting to the seat post binder, not sure who made them (I think Dia Compe made one). On my Mercian, since there is no brazed on cable stop for centerpulls, I would have to find a binder-mounted QR stop. There's this generic one that's actually quite nice (but the ferrule is rotated 180 degree the wrong way in the photo):

So you've done this with NR levers? How did it turn out? I wasn't worried about the anodizing remover damaging the steel, I was more concerned about sanding around it since it protrudes. I was actually thinking of just sanding off the anodizing with 220 grit since that's what I use to remove most rash from alloy components before polishing, but is it better to chemically remove the anodizing first?

Yes, Shimano and Dia Compe made a rear hanger with a QR that attached to the binder bolt. The one in current production has an adjuster and QR feature, but it's not a lever.


I've done Suntour Superbe, Gran Compe and Super Record. They're all essentially the same. Better living through chemistry, my friend. I recommend Jetsco. It's fast, simple and safer than oven cleaner.

I like it, it's simple. Weinmann also made them, here's a headset mounted one. I ain't shelling out $30 for it, however.

Thanks! Yes. That's the thing I hadn't seen before, and before the caffeine kicked in, that's what I thought the conversation was about.

There are lots of variations on what SBP posted that mount either to the seatpost binder or fit in the headset assembly; and I realized that the conversation may have been about those about five minutes later.

I really like Dia Compe levers.

Weinmann made a number of different lever styles. The ones that are more like Campy levers, in shape, are really quite nice. Neal gave me an unusual set of Weinmann brakes last year so I got a pair of the better Weinmann levers to go with them, and quite like the combination. If you can wait a couple weeks, I'll let you try them out.

If you end up not using the MAFAC Competitions and are willing to part with them, let me know. They'd be nice to round out the brake gruppo on my FrankenCilo which is currently sporting Weinmann levers (which I like just fine) and MAFAC Competition brakes.

I actually like MAFAC centerpulls, and was considering ditching the Weinmanns for a set of MAFAC Racers, which would have adequate reach for this bike. But the Weinmanns work just fine.

Justin, where did you find this, and are they still available?

I got plenty of old weinmann levers without that qr feature, I can almost give them away, the bikes I part out I have stopped takeing them off because there is I have no need for the .

pm me and I will look about.

The interwebz. No, they're no longer produced.