was wondering if these can be used alone, as the only lever. Not sure how they work exactly do they cut the cable from regular roadie levers?) anyone wanna fill me in. or if there's anything else that's good for a front brake? i have some old POS lever off like a shopping bike or whatever, but it's too long. i could cut it i guess, but i'd like a decent lever on there. so please tell me what's up with these nashbar joints

https://www.nashbar.com/profile.cfm?c...eid=&pagename=

several threads exist on this subject, give it a search.

these levers work great on their own. read all about how to connect them in the threads you will find. it makes zero intuitive sense (i still don't quite get it) but it works a peach.

they work fine on their own. they're called inline or interruptor levers, and people say that they push the housing instead of pulling the cable. that's confusing for me to think of them that way, because any lever does both (it depends on your frame of reference--think back to high school physics class). pulling the cable IS pushing the housing. it's a hinge and either the side of the hinge holding the housing moves, or the side holding the cable moves; it moves the end of the cable away from the end of the housing, and so the cable is pulled up again, down by the brake.

if the explanation was totally unnecessary, forgive me. it's good for me to spell it out, because i didn't really understand how or why they worked at first. but i'm a visual/tactile learner and need to explain things to myself in order to understand...

yeah makes perfect sense, and thanks for the explanation. still don't know what you'd need to "end" the cable as the housing must stop at the lever, therefore the cable must need to be "capped" in some way seeing as it's the housing and not the cable that's actuated by the lever, but i'll do as i'm told and search the boards

Often called cyclocross levers, if you are searching.

set up your housing and just thread the inner from the other side of the lever and you're good.

so what goes on the end of the cable? since the inline lever only grabs the housing (right?) and the cable itself would normally go to the regular lever, what do you put on the end of the cable to keep it? sorry, searched all the other threads and i still can't find the answer.

nah, i'm pretty sure the ball on the end of the cable will stop on the other side of the lever--not unlike an ordinary brake.

i think i just lost a long post to this thread explaining how these work. it probably wasn't very clear anyway, and the best way to figure it out is just to do it for yourself and you'll see how very simple it is, but...

in short, the cable is fixed to the inside of the lever, and to the brake. unlike regular levers, it never moves on the lever end.

when you pull the lever, you push the housing away from the lever body, effectively lengthening the area the housing occupies. since the cable isn't moving on the lever end, this has the effect of pulling the cable up where it can move - in the spring loaded caliper of the brake.

k that makes sense. ok i'm done! thanks again.

ps one of the best things i found so far on this site was tghread where someone was asking someone else to sell him the extra one from a pair dude had just bought. dude said, like most people on this board i wouldn't sell you the other lever because it's an excuse to build another fixie around it. laughed my @ss off