Dual brake levers

I was thinking about using the same rotor and reversing the dbrake. I don’t know exactly how, but I think I could try. A caliper will set in the front part of the rotor and one in the back part

This Y-junction on a hydraulic brake sounds vaguely familiar but I was not able to find the post on the forum with a quick search (a more thorough search is necessary).

However, it really sound like a problem specific to unicycles so pretty sure it was shown here (but I will check the french forum as well just in case…)

Found a similar recent discussion on the French forum:

The two important points:

  • a pic with double disks (but no close-up to see the details)
  • a general opinion that it would work better with cable than hydraulic(with the dual lever setup)

I feel like I’ve seen a Y-junction hydro brake on a bike adapted for a guy with one hand before. He had a prosthetic claw on his other hand that could grab the grip reliably, but it didn’t have enough fingers to hold on and pull a brake at the same time, so he had a setup done that let him use one lever for both brakes.

I still reckon two separate brakes is a better idea. How about a disc and a rim brake? Put a Magura on the rim, and your choice of disc (Whether that’s an EDB or a Nimbus hub/D’brake), set one of them up as a drag brake and the other as a more powerful yanking lever.

How you’d set up a drag brake like OP’s with hydraulics, I don’t know :smiley:

Yeah, that’s what I’d like to have, for those long downhills that area steady.

Freewheelers might be able to benefit from this if our hubs were ISIS, or if there was an option for cotterless cranks that were compatable with external discs. I’m riding brakeless, but for people still using brakes (read: “sensible people”) being able to stop the cranks and keep coasting could have a much more stable platform to balance and hop on. I’ll have to see if I can set something up tomorrow to experiment. It could certainly help my power transfer while pumping.

For the cotterless cranks you could use a young rider bmx right crank spider. I used it for my huni-rex… however you will need 2 brake, one for the cranks only and one for the wheel

In the pre-KH Spirit past, there was a disk brake kit using Sinz cranks and a rotor attached to the spider (maybe it was Mountainuni like the UCM adapter).

Anyway, Sinz sells these cranks in both ISIS and square. So theoretically, you could test what you described :slight_smile:

Do you have a link? I wasn’t able to find anything. And I know I’d need two brakes if I wanted to be able to stop, but I’m currently not using any brakes on my F26, so I’d just use the one to keep my cranks stable. If I wanted to add a stoping brake later then I’d have to figure out that setup.

I found the Sinz Cotterless cranks. Are the adapters still sold? Some older photos seem to show the disc mounted directly to the spider.

You can look for younger bike components like: https://kidsracing.co.uk/collections/short-cranksets-kids-cranks-lengths-narrow-q-factors
For the rotor attached directly to the spider I bought exactly the Muni pre-KH version. It seems to me that Yogi sold it to me. However I still own one if you are located in Europe

The rotor attached to a square taper crank spider

With a trouble free mechanical brake something like this could be done relatively easily.

Did you experience any difference from a Mec.DB vs a HDB?

I’ve never used a HDB (hydraulic disk brake) but this brake seems to work very well. The cable is very short and has very little bend in it with nearly a straight shot from the handle to the brake. I suppose there would be more of an advantage with HDB’s when the cable/hydraulic line had to be longer with more bends. Details at: Homemade Unicycle Brake Lever Photo Gallery by Jim Thode at pbase.com

Shimano just introduced a gravel bike groupset, which mostly seems silly to me, but it includes an optional in-line hydraulic brake lever so you can put an extra brake lever on your bar tops, to go with the normal drop bar position.

If these are a vaguely reasonable price when they’re released then I’ll probably get myself one to try for the freewheel (with bars).
I wonder whether the main lever is designed differently to facilitate this secondary lever or if it’ll be compatible as an addition to other setups. I feel like the auto-adjusting on the main lever would probably cause issues.
The model is the BL-RX812.
They do also look quite small:


It says it maintains compatability with their road and MTB groupsets, so I guess you could put an MTB lever on the end rather than an STI lever (which might be a bit too long/awkwardly angled for a uni)

Interesting though!

EDIT: My CX bike has these extra inline levers, not hydraulic but the levers are indeed very small compared to the STI’s on the hoods.

“The new RX812 inline levers are compatible with other older Shimano hydraulic drop bar levers, but aren’t expected to arrive until September.”

I presume older drop-bar levers also auto-adjust, but I still can’t quite work this out.

Size wise, I’ve run two finger levers for ages, normally just using one finger, so they might be OK.

New to the forum. I’ve been riding since lockdowns.

I ride road (bike paths really) and XC, and I really wish I could brake from both the handlebar and the seat handle. Does any one have success with an in-line dual brake-lever setup? I’m looking into experimenting with an in-line setup using mechanical disc brakes (see attached diagram). In terms of braking modulation, it will be a downgrade from hydraulics, but that may be an acceptable compromise if I can brake from multiple positions.

Other less elegant solutions include extra long spooners and just having two independent outboard/inboard braking systems, both of which I’m not too keen on trying.

1 Like

You can also do it with hydraulic brakes:

I’m still using this setup without any issues.

3 Likes