My bar-mounted brakes are all mounted so they’re only useable from the right hand side.
It’s definitely slightly more of a problem in a country where we drive and ride on the left, but I’ve very rarely had any issue.
If the turn’s on a steep downhill, then I sometimes find that I have to signal, move into the middle of the road, use the brake a bit more, signal and turn.
I’d never consider making it symmetrical now with one lever due to how much less ergonomic it is and how much I use the brake, but I’d still like to try a secondary inline lever on the other side (especially on the 32/36" road freewheel).
That’s exactly the kind of thing I’m trying to decide on. I don’t like my stadium saddle as I find it very uncomfortable after 4 km or so and am thinking of replacing it with the M4O with the long handle, my thoughts being that it would provide a handle that could be used right up next to the saddle for muni and further out for road riding and it seems to be very highly regarded by most people here.
I’m basically debating whether I want it with the center mount brake adaptor and a starfighter adaptor or just to mount it on the left and forget about braking with my right hand.
I obviously don’t know about your financial situation, but it doesn’t cost all that much to try both in the grand scheme of things. I personally have never found any brake solution that works equally well with either hand (including T-bars with starfighter) as comfortable as one that makes it perfect for one hand.
But others find it perfectly comfortable and if I was one of them, I’d mount my brake in a symmetric way too.
Because I like to brake with both hands I needed a brake adapter with the handlesaddle. The one I ordered with it was IMHO poorly built and didn’t fit my needs, so I had to build my own…
For me on my geared 36", there’s a lot of braking for downhills. It would get very old if I had to do it all with one hand, and sometimes gets a little difficult if the road camber or wind are conflicting with which hand you have on the brake. It did not take me long at all of get competent with my right hand on the brake; my left previously having been the dominant. So if you have long stretches of braking, opening it up for both hands is a good idea. If it’s more of a Muni or jumping-type of braking, it probably doesn’t matter as much because most of it isn’t being held for a long time.
I also have the brake centered on my Muni, but don’t mix hands as much; my left hand is the dominant seat-holding and braking hand, though I can use both.
I’m thinking, based on the responses here that I will probably start with a brake on the left side and then figure out how to adapt it to an ambidextrous brake with the starfighter. Nobody seems to think the m41 center adaptor is much good and I’m going to have to figure out how to adapt the nightfox to the m41 saddle anyway.
Regarding finances, it’s not something I can’t afford, but I’ve bought 4 decent unicycles over the past seven months or so and my wife is saying I need to cool it for awhile.
