This is such a noob question and something I’ve never really thought about before. I’ve always set up brakes so there is a ‘reasonable’ amount of lever travel using the mountain bike concept of a having the brake lever sitting a bit closer to the handlebar when braking on a long descent helps avoid cramping or aching hands. I don’t mean that I set them up with loads of movement, but conversely I’ve been told that there should be pretty well as little movement as possible – light switch like.

Weirdly I can’t find anything on-line about this? Who’s right, or does it just boil down to personal preference? Any links to clarify, and set this in stone?

It’s all down to personal preference. Personally I think light switch brakes are wrong.

I think most new bikes come with the levers set with very little movement, giving the brakes a very on/off feel.

I think this is wrong.

You need to be able to pull on the levers without instantly engaging the brakes to allow modulation and to allow you to almost rest your fingers on the levers without having the brakes on, when doing long descents for example.

I’ll have my brakes set up with lots of travel in the lever before I’m able to lock up the wheel, and I always have more travel in the rear to avoid skidding when the brakes are grabbed.

Conversely, I like having mine set up with minimal movement before I can feel the pads engaging. Horses for courses and all that

Break? <sigh>

+1 for choice.

I like progressive brakes with plenty of modulation, my road levers lock the wheel at about half travel.

There may be an element of brake performance here too. I’m running discs and sudden bite would be OTB. Maybe if you need to apply a lot of pressure for a time longer than instant to scrub speed you would want sharper lever feel?

Suspect a lit of it is to do with perceptions in showroom though…

As has also been pointed out by colleagues, contact patch will make a difference. My 700×32’s are going to have much more available friction area for gripping the ground than 700×22’s for instance…

I use Campag brakes on my road bikes, and it won’t take bigger tires than 23s, I’ve never felt I needed much more braking. Coming of the Giau in he Maratona at speeds up to 80kmh and braking into tight hairpins wasn’t a problem. My brake levers nearly come back to the bars if I pull hard enough.

Break? <sigh>

I’m surprised that you missed the fact that I should have spelled leavers with a ‘z’.

Thanks for the info peeps. I figured it was probably down to personal preference.

Mininimul movement for me, both on road calipers, disks and the MTB’s. I like them to touch the rims/disk almost as soon as any pressure is applied to them. I do wind the reach in though so they are easy to reach.

Way easier to apply more power if the contact is a decent amount through the travel.

The other thing to think of with road levers, if the brake bite is too close, you run the risk of dragging the brakes as you do a full sweep shift.

Personal preference but I’ve always thought that road brakes are generally set up too tight.

I don’t understand how this affects “modulation” or whether brakes are “progressive”. All we’re talking about is how big the dead zone is before the brakes bite.

Personally I prefer to set them up with as little movement as possible so that there’s plenty of usable travel to allow for pad wear and there’s no risk of bottoming out if you really need to brake hard.

Possibly the improved feel comes from having the lever engage when the fingers are in the middle of their useable range, rather than at the limits. This of course does depend on individual hand size.