am i missing something? ive got some old nitto road bars and every bmx lever ive tried has seemed way too small(the clamp diameter of the brake) any ideas?

ideas? for what? BMX bars are made of smaller diameter tubing, they don't need to be as stiff on their own because of the crossbar structure. If you want something similar for a road bar try a cyclocross lever.

You can use BMX levers with no problem but they like your bars come in a variety of clamp diameters so you need to match them up. However a lot are for 22.2 bars which is smaller than your average road bar.

However some of the cheaper ones have adjustable clamps, while others have shims so they can fit a variety of bars. For example Diatech Dirty Harry/Tech 99s are a pretty popular choice and fit 25.4 bars great.

Not too sure what dia your bars are but most Nitto stuff is 25.4, but I would measure it and go from there. The QBP catalog and others normally lists the clamp size of the levers.

See:
https://harriscyclery.net/site/page.c...ory=647&type=T

If your bars are 26.0 then the choice of BMX levers gets smaller and you may be better off going the cyclocross route.

I had to use a whooooole lot of force to get my lever on, but I eventually got it.

https://sheldonbrown.com/harris/brake-levers-drop.html

check out the bottom of the page. The tektro ones are nice because the clamp is hinged so you don't have to mess with taking your tape/ grips off or messing up your bars.

I just put a tektro hinged BMX lever on my bars. Works great, and looks slick. I'm probably going to get another one for a rear brake, for when I switch over to SS (occassionally).

BMX bars used to be the same size, now as stated they are smaller. So if you can find a lever still working that is a couple years old it will fit. Most new ones are too small because of the current weight shaving trend in BMX

I made a 22.2 lever fit on 25.4 bars. It wasnt pretty. And it was when I just started riding fixed and was used to repairing bmx bikes so I basically just pounded the bars flat in one spot and and bent a long bolt and made it work. they were crappy bars and I would never do that these days. Not sugesting this, just sharing.

I've got 25.4 bars and use the Diatech Tech 99s. It works great for me. It's laced to a Shimano Tiagra front brake, and although certainly not bomb-proof, it's a great inexpensive set-up. I mounted the handle upside down so that my brake lever is at my right.

YMMV.

I just used a crappy lever, the metal was soft so it was easily bent and then tightened into place.