I'm looking into a set of bullhorns for my fixie. Currently I have the bars that curve down (drops?). Pardon my ignorance of the correct terms, I'm fairly new to fixed gear and come from a cross country background.

I have a brake lever on my current handlebars, but I've noticed that you can purchase brake levers to go into the ends of bullhorns. Will I have to buy one of these brake levers, or will my current one work? I assume I have a "standard" brake lever, it just bolts onto the handlebars as it is.

Thanks!

Hey, you'll want something like these to work: https://www.nashbar.com/profile.cfm?c...ku=8047&brand=

You can also snag a cheap bullhorn bar from Nashbar for $13 on sale at the moment.

Read as much as you can to find out this kind of information in the future! I'm new to fixed as well, but forums like these have answered my questions well by frequent searching.

you can run a number of brake levers on bullhorns. the time trial type levers (as shown above) are the standard, and designed for bullhorns, however you can also use cyclocross levers on the flat part of the bar, clamping it near where the bars attach to the stem, or i currently just have a road lever clamped onto the end of my bullhorns, which works just as well, even though it's fairly ugly.

point is, no, you don't "need" any particular type of brake lever.

The pros used to use regular aero levers on the ends of their bullhorns because time trial levers didn't exist at the time. See the Greg Lemond picture attached. You can mount regular aero levers a number of ways on bullhorns to your taste; they are actually more versatile on bullhorns because you don't need to rest your hands on the hoods, you just need to be able to squeeze the levers.

yea... dont use the original brake lever. it is FUGLY. tt levers look great, especially on tt bars. good luck!

cheapskate can mount the regular roadie levers just about anywhere on the bars with some patience. this was a real hurry up, f it up, fix it up project though. the brake is pretty strong though.

If you are only going to run 1 brake, I see no need to buy new brake levers(esp. TT levers, which only come in pairs) Just use the one you've got, as shown here:

https://velospace.org/node/144

The Cane Creek 200TT is a sweet looking brake and is pretty light. Nashbar has a sale on them right now.

Yeah, but that's fugly. And Nashbar TT brake levers are only $20 - cheap way to have a backup.

I use diacompe TT levers, which are in the same price neighborhood as the nashbars (although slightly more). I compared them to another brand they had in stock at Montano Velo, and the DC ones seemed slightly less chinsy. That being said, after I installed them, I realized the rivets that the levers are hinged on aren't extremely tight, and made a slight rattle when I rode. This annoyed the living piss out of me. I wound a little dental floss underneath the head of the rivet (between the head and the washer), the rattle went a way. You may find a similar problem with whichever you get.

The other thing I liked about the diacompe is that they are all black:
diacompes

just use a cross inline lever