Extra Brakes for girls?

rollingscone

Random (verging on the Fridayesque)topic.

What's the deal with giant putting cx levers on their women's road bikes?

Is this something female cyclists have been crying out for because of some specific physiological issue or is it just Giant saying "Der Wimmenschens neet reassurance because dey are sho very delikat unt fragile"(clearly I'm not good at Dutch accents).

It just seems like a particularly condescending marketing gimmick.

As a male in possession of a peasant rebellion crushing physiology I find the idea of braking with my hands near the stem disconcerting.

Does female physiology make this preferable?

Quigs Snr

I think you hit the nail on the head... marketing gimmick. No real reason for it other than more women seem to think that having the brakes up on the top of the bars is safer - possibly because the reach is shorter.. and since most bike shops are stuck in 1989 and seem to want to sell folks bikes too big for them for some reason... I think that they are finding the reach in the normal position difficult due to poor bike fitting.

I had them removed from a bike I picked up for a lady recently... could not condone starting someone off with a setup which encourages dangerous habits... having the brakes there that close to the stem makes the bike less stable under braking, especially down a hill. They have a lot less power too and seem to jam and stick rather easily. To be honest, having them on a CX bike or a tourer is fair enough but I reckon putting them on entry level bikes is irresponsible.

OldBean

A friend of mine in the states has a bike with 3 brakes and a coaster brake. It was the standard on all the ladies 'city bikes' she was looking at. Shop told her it was advised for ladies safety. Silly marketing technique.

Seaneh

I have bar top brakes on my bike and I love them, really handy for city use as it means I can be completely upright for and have a better view of traffic than on the hoods. They don't have a whole lot of stopping power but the times when I'd use them (stop start city traffic) they do the job grand.

MB Lacey

I asked my lbs shop to fit my new road bike with the cx brakes, they were disgusted with me and said I wouldn't need them.
I felt I'd be safer in traffic with the brakes at the top, so they agreed to fit them for me, telling me I'd end up not using them and I'd eventually want them taken off.
I love them and use them a lot - no idea if it's a 'female' thing, but I use them generally when I'm sitting upright weaving through city centre traffic.

triggermortis

rollingscone wrote: »

Random (verging on the Fridayesque)topic.

What's the deal with giant putting cx levers on their women's road bikes?

Is this something female cyclists have been crying out for because of some specific physiological issue or is it just Giant saying "Der Wimmenschens neet reassurance because dey are sho very delikat unt fragile"(clearly I'm not good at Dutch accents).

It just seems like a particularly condescending marketing gimmick.

As a male in possession of a peasant rebellion crushing physiology I find the idea of braking with my hands near the stem disconcerting.

Does female physiology make this preferable?

Just an observation, but why would Giant have Dutch accents? Their company is based in Taiwan

smacl

rollingscone wrote: »

As a male in possession of a peasant rebellion crushing physiology I find the idea of braking with my hands near the stem disconcerting.

Does female physiology make this preferable?

I don't believe it's anything to do with gender specific physiology, more psychology and perceived functionality. I don't do any city commuting on my road bike, but I could see the option for braking from the tops being attractive to many people in certain scenarios. IMO, the big problem would be for those transitioning from a flat bar bike to drops, and ending up using the road bike as a less effective hybrid, never actually using the bike in the way it was designed to be used. Personally, I found getting used to using the controls from the drops as well as the hoods took some getting used to moving from the hybrid, and if I'd brakes on top it would have made this process much slower. For me, the road bike only became really comfortable once I got to grips with being in the drops for steep and/or fast descents. The thought of descending at any speed in an upright position with poor braking would freak me out.

Plutonium Kun

Giant have invested a lot in womens bikes - I was in Taiwan a few years ago and they opened experimental 'womens only' bike shops, with all female staff, they seemed very popular. So I would guess they are doing on the basis of market research, its not the whim of some designer.

A female friend of mine has CX type levers on her Specialized Dolce and found them very reassuring when getting back into cycling after many years as she didn't feel so comfortable going down on the drops. A key problem with lots of male bikes for smaller women is that brake levers are just too large to be comfortable and ergonomic for smaller hands, I would imagine this is one way of addressing this.

rollingscone

So the answer would be psychological rather than physiological then.

I wondered if centres of gravity would be so dramatically different that braking from either side of the stem than it is for an ogre like me (from brief experience on a cx bike).

seamus

Yeah, it seems really bizarre. I have my hands on the flats all the time in city traffic and I've never once thought, "I need some brake levers here". It's probably a matter of what you get used to.

I would suspect it's a marketing thing. New riders would definitely find the flats disconcerting without brake levers, and they probably think that most women buying a bike are going to be new riders and therefore having brake levers on the flats will make the bike more appealing to the average female rider.

Lumen

Plutonium Kun wrote: »

A key problem with lots of male bikes for smaller women is that brake levers are just too large to be comfortable and ergonomic for smaller hands

^ This.

Step 1. Invent scaled down brifter that works.
Step 2. Paint it pink.
....
?!PROFIT?!

QueensGael

I have those brakes on my old Specialized Dolce; when I bought it ~6 years ago, I was moving over from using an MTB, and found it very reassuring for city cycling, which is what I used it for mostly at the time. I didn't feel comfortable at all on the drops, esp when I had a backpack on. Over the years, I've made friends with the drops and my bike handling is much better than the wobbler I used to be

So yeah, if the girleens want more brakes, what harm. If they don't want them, they can take them off. Simples.

doozerie

Those levers seem like a poor solution to a set of problems, some of which are real and some of which are largely (or entirely) down to perception.

There is a real problem for people with small hands, male or female, that the reach of standard brake levers just doesn't suit their hands. If you are having to stretch your fingers to even get a fingertip on the lever then you're not going to feel confident of being able to use the brakes when you have to. However, there already exist some remedies to this, such as fitting spacers to the top of the lever so that the lever sits closer to the handlebars, and adjusting the brake cable tension so you hit full resistance when the lever is within your comfortable range (some bikes come from the factory/shop with the brakes set up such that the brakes are fully applied with only a tiny movement of the levers). Another approach to tackling this is to fit handlebars which are shaped to minimise the distance to the levers when in the drops. If buying from a decent shop they should at least be able to advise on some of these options rather than simply offering levers on the flats of the bars as the only solution.

The perception hurdle has already been discussed, some people feel uncomfortable and therefore unsafe on the hoods or in the drops. Comfortable brake levers and brakes that work well should go some way towards tackling that concern but might not eliminate the concern for some. There is an element of education there as well as a need to just try it to get used to it. In that sense it's not unlike trying to convince someone that clipless pedals are perfectly safe and not the death traps that some people seem convinced of. It's also not unlike trying to convince someone that riding on 2 wheels is perfectly safe and you don't actually need stabilisers - most adults would feel patronised if you told them that but they probably don't see the brakes issue as falling into a similar category of concern.

The trouble is, the more that CX levers are seen as the norm, the more entrenched may become the idea that they are necessary. If someone has given a bit of thought to the issue and decided that they want them, then I don't see an issue with that, but where they are fitted as a matter of course then I think that's potentially creating a problem in the long run. I still remember the horrible "safety" levers fitted as standard to all basic road bikes when I was a kid (they pivoted on a bolt into the inner side of the brake hood and ran parallel to the flats of the bars) - they were rubbish, poor quality braking, they trapped your fingers against the bars, etc. It was a relief to get a bike without them and my safety improved as a result. Maybe they still exist but I'd never let a child of mine buy a bike with them on it. Maybe CX levers are destined to be a modern equivalent.