I am building up a new bike and looking for brake lever suggestions. Do some levers help increase braking power?
The brifters have to correspond to the derailleurs, but most brake levers will work with most brake calipers.
In my stable I have 3 bikes with Campy gruppos, 1 Shimano, 1 SRAM; THE Campy set up works best.
Hey mate, depends on what sort of bike…
If it’s for a triathlon build I’d recommend the bontrager rxxxl carbon brakes…
I have had them on my bike for about 9 months and have been really happy with them… Advantages are you have some adjustment for brake pads on the lever itself, they have a good feel when braking and also look pretty cool…
If talking tt bike you can’t beat the magura hydro brakes. If taking road, it’s kinda same same.
Assuming it’s a tri bike, there’s a tradeoff. Clunky, non-aero levers like the Diacomp 177s (standard on many low-end tri bikes) give you a lot of braking leverage, while aero levers like the ones from Vision are much faster, but are small, thin and don’t provide the same leverage. Better levers will have a return spring, which helps modulation, but not power. I’d say the best aero/power compromise are the SRAM levers. Personally, I use the 3T levers since aero means more to me than braking performance. I added KoolStop wet weather pads (salmon colored) to my brakes, which have improved performance greatly.
Do you need to accommodate more than one wheel width on the bike that you’ll be installing these levers on?
If so, you’ll want to take a look at the Bontrager RXXXL levers which have a gigantic barrel adjustor built in to facilitate quick wheel swaps from narrow to wide…