Plastic brake break

By Cycling UK
Recently, my wife applied her front brake on approaching a T-junction, whereupon the brake lever clamp broke, so she couldn’t stop! Fortunately there was no traffic. I would like to warn readers to avoid plastic brake levers and use metal ones.

Graham Roberts

If (that’s a big ‘if’) designed with due regard to the properties of the material, a plastic lever shouldn’t be any more likely to fail. And I have also seen broken metal ones, but rarely except after a crash. It’s hard to be sure that some bump or scrape hasn’t weakened this safety-critical component (e.g. someone could carelessly park their bike against yours and wrench your lever when disentangling the bikes). So whatever they’re made from, give both levers a hard squeeze before setting out on a ride.

Chris Juden

 

This was first published in the August / September 2012 edition of CTC's Cycle magazine.

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