Wire Brake

Italian manufacturer OML, however, has introduced a braking system that may meet the minimalist standards of fixie riders. It’s called Wire Brake, and it replaces two brake levels with a single plastic-housed wire.

Wire Brake is designed to work on bullhorn or drop bars, with its braking wire stretching across the gap between the two sides. Pulling or pushing on that wire at any location (with either or both hands) creates tension, activating the front and rear brakes simultaneously – or activating just one brake, if that’s all the bike has.

It’s the easier
It’s the cheaper
It’s the lighter

You have to go a long way down their kickstarter page to find out that it will be delivered with two drill bits and a template for you to drill holes in your handlebars… 😯

meet the minimalist standards of fixie riders…replaces two brake level(r)s

Fixies only have one lever, shirley?

Quite like it, but mostly I like the fact that designers are thinking out of the box, only works with a fixie though of course!

pretty cool idea. AND, if you had a little simple lever you could connect it to the wire and simply operate it with a couple of fingers, then you could get rid of the wire across the handlebars!

No possibility whatsoever of your bars cracking….

For that moment when your hand slips off the bars, catches the wire and sends you OTB!

You have to go a long way down their kickstarter page to find out that it will be delivered with two drill bits and a template for you to drill holes in your handlebars… 😯

I recently rebuilt my tourer, the bars on that were drilled by someone in the dim and distant past to take internal brake cables, they’re at least 30 years old.

Not necessarily advising it, but it’ not a recipe for instant doom, especially I imagine on bullhorns where you put relatively little weight on the horns (compared to the drops the bars were cut down from).

From the kickstarter video it looks suspiciously like all they’ve done is made a couple of bent cable housing/guides (like v-brake noodles)?

There’s probably more to it than that, but regardless it seems a pretty pointless exercise. Run brakes and you have an ergonomically designed lever right at your finger tips – run the wire and you have to awkwardly reach just to pull on a cable.

babble – Member
pretty cool idea. AND, if you had a little simple lever you could connect it to the wire and simply operate it with a couple of fingers, then you could get rid of the wire across the handlebars!

I’m off to kickstarter to steal your idea and get it funded.

Hadn’t been on the kickstarter page – like they fact they claim it’s ‘universal’ compared to normal brakes.
Guess it is…if you count drilling holes in your bars as a ‘universal’ system.
Nuts.

i’m sure i’ve seen something like this before…

(on a bike, in Copenhagen, earlier this year)

these:

‘cykelmageren’ apparently…

Is there another wire I can pull that will help me to go faster?

For that moment when your hand slips off the bars, catches the wire and sends you OTB!

And your head gets cheesewired off and rolls down the road without you.

there’s no leverage multiplier so they’d be piss weak. No thanks

actually,

(insert maths too complicated to explain here*, here)

the mechanical advantage isn’t too bad…

*ok, i’ll have a go: when you ‘pull’ the cable, the tension created in the cable will be a sin (i think, or is it tan?) function of the force you pull with, where the angle is the deflected angle created…

the angle will be quite small, so the tension in the cable will be higher than you put in, so to speak.

(ok, a dedicated lever is definitely a better idea, but still, this ‘leverless’ design is an entertaining** concept)

(**entertaining for those watching from a safe distance)

Fancy marketing brought to you via the internet – no end of idiots will buy into it.

that’s mostly what the internet is for…

@ ahwiles

I don’t know what means 🙁

Although from a ‘feel’ POV you’d be getting feedback through a thin wire as opposed to a ergonomically shaped lever so it would be less comfortable for sustained/sharp braking, but I guess it’s not really designed for that. Just for slowing sufficiently to deftly scoop your morning machiatto as you swan past your favourite artisan baristery.

I vaguely remember seeing a gear changer that worked in a similar way.

There was a series of pegs at pre-set distances that you hooked the loose gear cable-end into depending on what gear you wanted.

Is there another wire I can pull that will help me to go faster?

why do you want arrive quicker… 😉

It allows you to run a two brake setup in a way that is less effective, and more failure prone than a single brake.

As you can’t control the brakes independently, once you start braking with a reasonable force, your back wheel will lock up. And if *either* cable clamp slips (or if either brake fails in just about any other way), you’re completely screwed.

Genius.

I do believe that British Rail invented this many years ago. 😉

haha. i love the video with the ‘designer’ saying he had the idea and then it took four architects to perfect it. running the break cable through the handlebar….(would love to see how many of them it would take to change a light bulb..)

ok, here’s another great idea: how about we have the handlebars sort of disconnected from the stem and run the break cable between the two parts – when you want to break you simply yank the handlebars up. simple, beautiful, modern, fewer parts to go wrong. (queue picture of me at artists desk with fine pencil designs of new start-up plan with soft lighting and cool things lying around…)

ok, here’s another great idea: how about we have the handlebars sort of disconnected from the stem and run the break cable between the two parts – when you want to break you simply yank the handlebars up.

Bindun.