hydraulic levers

[WorkonSunday]

Hi all,

My wife has a cross bike which currently equipped with cable disc brake Shimano 105 levers with Shimano CX77 calipers.

She has very small hands so she always found it difficult to get enough leverage from the hood to brake properly. that's even with reach adjustment set to minimum.

we recently went to Pinarello showroom in London which had quite a few bikes setup with hydraulic disc brakes. She found the SRAM Force 1 lever hood quite large but at the same time, she's ok with them because they offer very light braking activation. She also tried a few Shimano ones RS505 and Ultegra ones which seem to have much stiffer activation. So here's the question, any one have any experience with the Campagnolo Hydraulics levers? Are they quite light actioned as well? or is there some adjustment that can be done to make the activation stiffer/lighter? my worry is that the SRAM we tried is an one off and it varies between brakes design, say APEX 1 or Rival 1. (We probably cannot afford to go to Ultegra/Force level drive train).

[TobinHatesYou]

Anecdotally I feel SRAM has a much more progressive lever feel. It starts light and gets heavier as you pull. Shimano feels light until the pads contact the rotor and then all of a sudden you feel a clunk and there is resistance in the rest of the lever stroke.

The lightness of the lever pull is as is. The only way to make the pull lighter is to use contact point or free stroke adjustment to allow some travel in the lever before contact. On some levers, reach can be adjusted for people with smaller hands, but again this doesn’t make the lever stroke feel lighter.

[wheelsONfire]

On my 6870 there's a weird thing. If you shorten stroke/ reach, the pads come closer to rotor.
The mech which worked my bike was not happy with this.

I don't know if the later series from Shimano is better?

[Miller]

The Campag hydro brakes are light action, in my opinion. The brake lever moves very easily until pad contact. Then apply as much braking force as you need.

I had a ride on a bike with Shimano hydro levers recently and tbh it didn't feel much different but maybe I'm an insensitive brute.

[RyanH]

Campag H11 has short and long throw settings. Long feels like Shimano and short is more powerful with less force. The shifter itself is not exactly small though so I'm not sure how it'd fit in a small hand.

[WorkonSunday]

Thanks for the replies guys. I recently learnt that Shimano 105 R7000 series has a small hand shifter/lever called R7025. not seen it in the flesh yet, so we will probably wait until some bikes are fitted with it. but signs are looking good, especially at 105 level.