And to get it out of the way, yes I use a front brake. I suck and can't skid or skip really.

I have snapped my second brake cable in a one week span and now I obviously need to figure out a solution. I rarely use the brake, I can control my speed fine, and normally only grab it when something takes me by surprise. This morning I nearly killed an old Chinese man who happened to be riding up the wrong side of the path in that S curve on the Manhattan end of the Manhattan Bridge. I need it for situations like that, Chinatown in general and downtown Brooklyn, if you know what I mean.

I am using Nashbar bullhorns and a cheap Nashbar time trial lever. The cables I have been using may have been cheap also, but they lasted like 9 months before breaking so I am discounting them. I think the problem is a design flaw with the Nashbar lever. The cable is snapping up inside the lever, right at the section that bends against the interior of the lever when pulled.

So my question is, would better levers solve this problem? Ie, would they have better internal routing that does not unduly stress the cable itself? I also wonder if I cut a little bit of cable housing and jam it up in the lever, if it does not interfere with the motion, would it protect the cable in that area?

Hmm... Very interesting. Been awhile, but my last brake was the same style. No problems with snapping, but it got stuck all the way out quite a bit of the time. Don't think I even have it any more. But the problem with sticking open was that my cable was pulling through the hole in the bar. You might take a good look at the slot that the cable sits in and see if there's any little burs on the metal. Sanding it down might help a little. Open and close it really slow and see if there's anything it's rubbing on.

Sorry I don't have much more in the way of help - brakes aren't really my thing

Short of drawing MS Paint diagrams, it is hard to explain exactly what is happening.

The problem is the cable bends at like a 90 degree angle AGAINST the bottom of the interior part of the lever when it is pulled and starts to get mashed and then obviously starts to break.

It seems like a better designed lever would have a cutout or routing that avoided this problem.

You could probably Dremel a deeper routing... Might be more trouble than it's worth.

Or you could learn to skid/skip and swerve, although that would probably be tough on sidewalks on bridges...

Maybe disengaging the cable, then wrapping the end right up to the little knobby thingy on the end in BET might be a temporary soloution? That would at least prevent the straight metal on metal contact, and possibly prolong it. I wonder if solder for the last 1/2 inch from the knobby thingy might help too, but it might make it too stiff.

Another option might be running your brake super tight - if you had it so that you couldn't pull it more than 45deg then it wouldn't get the same tension. But you would run a much higher risk of endoing, esp downhill.

I am going to mess with it tonight and see. I swear that if some cable housing up in the interior of the brake doesn't get in the way, it will protect it enough to stop this.

Worst case, I also have a spare cyclocross lever laying around, so I could always stick that on and get used to grabbing at the crossbar rather than at the ends.

I just went to look at my Dia-Compe levers on my bullhorn. There is no bend at all in the cable. The cable end sits in a recess and there is a slot for the cable so it goes straight out the back. Last week Performance had these levers on sale for $14.95 in black, which I prefer. I run both front and rear brakes. I don't use them much, but I have used both enough times that I would never consider not having them.

Thanks. I will take a look at those.

The problem I see with actual housing, is where it will go - if you are routing from the outside in with the housing, the brake won't release all of the way. You may be able to do some good with a really short length inside of the bar, but you will still need to secure it in place. I know if I go with a brake again, it will probably be a bmx/mtb/cyclocross style right by the stem. That's where my hands are 90% of the time. If I were to want a brake, I would want it at my fingertips, not at the end of aero bars....

No. I haven't.

my Shiman bar end lever routs the cable outside the bar so I haven't had any problems breaking brake cables BUt I did have a mushy front brake during an EBP (Emergency Braking Procedure) a couple weeks ago. I had a car turning left at an intersection cut in front of me, casuing me to grab a handful of front brake, only to find it to not work all of a sudden. Turns out I forgot to put on one of those metal cups that go on the end of brake cables and there was nothing there to stop the brake cable from working its way into the cable hole.I think because my cable is routed externally, I haven't experienced the problem of brake cable breakage.

or these.

you might get them sooner than through performance...

I use cable housing (though I use Profiles with Dia Compe's, I recently built a bike with the Nashbar stuff) which will get rid of the problem that HereNT mentioned about the cable being cut by the internal housing on the bar itself.

I think the Nashbar bar and levers are fine.