Riding home in the rain last night, in the bus lane. Taxi in front, stops at lights, I pull on the brakes, little snapping noise in right hand lever, no brakes, ride into back of taxi in comic-book stylee, sort of slide off back of taxi (unhurt), wait for driver to leap out and berate, taxi drives off. Continue home slowly due to lack of brakes, walking downhills, getting cold.

I am really really hoping that it's a cable problem, but I have a nasty sinking feeling that the lever has broken. The bike shop tells me that Shimano do not sell any of the little bits that make up these levers and that if it is broken, it's a chuckaway job.

🙁

huh did you only have one brake to start with?

I had a 105 shifter just die on me too unfortunately, although it was the gears not the brakes that went.

Slightly worrying. I hope that doesn't happen to mine while going down a very fast hill!

Probably just the noggin on the end of the cable coming off. Fit new cable = sorted.

Use the other end of the cable to poke the noggin out if its still in there. Don't get the paranoia, its a rare occurance.

Started with two brakes, but was left with only the rear in bloody torrential rain and big ol' puddles… To be fair, they weren't working brilliantly to start with.

anotherdeadhero – thanks for the optimistic words, I shall poke away at the weekend!

I had the nipple come off in a Dura Ace STI, the resulting tiny pieces of cable jammed the shifter several times over the subsequent 18 months, until it totally seized about 2 months ago. No problems with the brakes though.

Why did you only have one brake on a bike with gears!? One brake on a fixie I can understand, sort of…

The left hand lever on the same bike broke about two months in… that time it was still under warranty so it was changed FOC.

I'm seeing from the internet that there seems to be some issues with the 105 levers.

njee20,

I started with 2 brakes, one broke on the way home, so I had one brake left…

And you walked down hills? Surely one brake's plenty for a tentative ride home!

I had the nipple come off in a Dura Ace STI

Heh, I had exactly the same, mech cable port was too small for me to get my needle nose pliers in, of course the cable end had splayed all over the shop so wiggling it out wasn't an option. In the end I had to get my (old!) surgical kit out and clamp it. Took me about an hour to wrestle the bugger out. Thankfully it still works fine.

If your back brake is a bit rubbish, new cables, cleaned rims and cartridge brake pads with a stiff alloy carrier will help massively. I've got some cheapy fibrax numbers that do the job nicely, also means you can replace pads more easily, if you can't go disc. If the pads are a pain to fit, smear the pad back and carrier with washing up liquid – won't affect braking performance like grease or oil would 🙂