Just lowered my stem and now the levers hit my toptube of my 456C.

Will I die? Or will my frame die, more importantly?

loosen the clamp bolt on the levers. If they do spin around and hit the TT they should tilt out of the way.

yes

On my hardtail, yes. The brake levers just touch and touch out of the way but my shifter hits it quite a lot. No on the full sus because of the dropped top tube.

only if your doing radddaz barspins

No, but then I’ve always ran mine tilted higher than many other people do. I can imagine that it’s a pain in the arse to have them keep hitting the TT though

Tom KP

A rejig of handlebars and stem saw mine clipping, at the same time as reading some reasonable arguments about flatter angles on levers. So now they don’t. (and I’m 17% more raddletastic, obvs.)

Mine used to and as the frame was expensive I had a top tube protector on it.

Then I did a bike skilz session and learned the importance of wrists down when attacking/descending and had to tilt the levers back up (and closer) which meant they clear.

If you stack the bike and the bars rotate hard with levers not clearing you will dent the top tube not matter how slack your levers. It’s either a top tube protector or adjustment.

Interesting.

I might rotate them slightly so they can clear it.

No. Never! Not on any bike ever!
But then I don’t run stupidly long forks, stupidly low bars or run my levers at a stupidly downwards angle.
Can you see what I’m getting at here?

Nope, it offends my sense of neatness.

only if your doing radddaz barspins

And tailwhips

I can’t imagine how it’s possible. I’m looking at the bike. I can’t see how my levers could ever touch the top tube. Feel daft.

I’m running 140mm forks, 20mm rise bars and a 60mm stem with a slight rise on a Cotic BFe and no headset spacers, and the shifter hits by quite a few mm. Run my brake levers about 10-20 degrees from horizontal and they just about touch.

Yes, they do on most of my bikes.

Crashing asside it’s never an issue, and even crashings never dented the top tube.

I can’t imagine how it’s possible. I’m looking at the bike. I can’t see how my levers could ever touch the top tube. Feel daft.

Really?

I’m tempted to take a photo later, mine quite happily touch as they are at the moment, and wouldn’t consider any of these to be true either:

But then I don’t run stupidly long forks, stupidly low bars or run my levers at a stupidly downwards angle.

On my holeshot the end of my bars used to touch the tip of my saddle/penis* 😯

Got a spoon now and it no longer touches.

*Still got the same penis.

I have a very relaxed riding position and reasonably high bars and my brake lever hit the centre of my toptube.

I do see brake levers set at amazingly dangly angles. I assumed it was just a fashion thing and the comment by adsh above seems ro confirm that.

Levers would touch bars if I crashed and the bars spun round but its the only position they are comfy in with my big hands

Or will my frame die, more importantly?

if anything is going to fail, it will be the brake lever.
its very dependant on frame shape, but quite common. worst case scenario is a minor ding in the top tube and/or a broken lever. Very unlikely though.

I tend to run my levers a shade loose anyway. Apparently a motocross trick. As mentioned above, tighten them up, then loosen them just enough. you want to be able to use them safely, and not have them move under normal loads, but with a good bash they will swivel out the way. same for shifters too. if you crank them right up you are likely just to snap them off with contact with the floor/trees/your nuts, in a crash.

I dented the top tube on my old Univega with the brake lever when I took a tumble. It was the first outing on the bike too, I was gutted, it was bought with paper round money.

On 2 bikes the bars touch the top tube first. ( no dents – many crashes)

On the other my bike the brake levers would hit but have in the past just swiveled out the way under crashing

My road bike , commuting bike , tt bike and cross bike – bars all hit first and no damage to them

Running Hope Tech evo brakes it’s the shifters that touch down first – looking forward to potentially swapping out the m/c’s for the new Tech 3’s so I can rotate the shifters up to a more comfortable angle. Should stop top tube fouling then.

I suffer from serious handle bar to top tube interference. It shows your front end is slammed and this is Cool! slamthatstem.com.

On my holeshot the end of my bars used to touch the tip of my saddle/penis*

Flaccid or aroused?

Not my brake levers, my shifters slam into my top tube though. Makes me wince even moar every time I crash! Big problem with 29ers innit.