OK I am down to race/ride the three peaks cross challenge in September and am running Avid BB7’s on my cross bike and am wanting to know if there is any braking system for the top bar that will work with my Sram shifters and BB7’s? I’m thinking not…

I was told Cane Creek cross top brakes would do the trick but after a reply Email from Cane creek they say that this is not possible!

Any help appreciated… 🙂

Huh? Why would they not work? The type of brake is pretty much immaterial as the crosstops just pull the cable inner. I’ve got BB5’s on my Boardman cx team and it came with crosstop levers as standard.

This is what the guys at Cane Creek say?!

The cross tops are made for use with side pull brakes, they do not create enough cable pull to be effective with mechanical disc or linear pull brakes.

So MrSparkle you think they will work? Please bare with me as i am not always the most mechanically minded and i do appreciate your comments

I had some Tektro (I think) top levers on my croix de fer with BB7s – they worked fine but I didn’t use them so I took them off.

they won’t work with mtb v brakes without travel adaptors or with MTB mechanical disc brakes. they will however work perfectly with road mechanical discs like avid “bb7 road” as they have different cable pull designed for road brake levers. I have that set up and it’s perfect.

cane creek are talking about bb7 mtb, not the road version which I assume Yiu have with your stis? assuming Yiu have the road version of the bb7 they will work fine

if they work with your current drop bar shifters then they will be road type – in which case any ofthe cross tops designed for cantis will work

Thats great guys thanks very much for all your input.

This is what i love about this forum…Answers out there for every type of biking problem!!!

Now time to find some top bar brakes at a good price??!!

I have tektro ones. I’ve used them for over five years now and they’re still working fine though starting to have some play though it’s not noticeable when riding.

I might have some cheap specialized ones, I’ll have a look later.