Brake levers; They’re not something you typically look to upgrade unless you’ve: a) broken yours, b) decided that they’re the worst feeling lever in the world or c) You have far too much money in your bank account and you want something bling. Unfortunatley for us mountain bikers, we quite often find ourselves fitting into at least one of those categories. So you may not have to worry about replacement levers now, but chances are down the track you will. So pay attention!

Aftermarket levers aren’t new to the Mountain Bike scene, I can remember back when I was a little squid checking out the Mountain Bike Action catalogues magazines to check out the prices on stuff. This was around the time that Downhill was just starting to take off, all the fork manufacturers were cranking out gnarly big forks (RST XXL anyone?) for stupid amounts of money…Anyway, you get the point, THAT era. What I still have implanted in my head were these ALTEC v-brake levers. Machined alloy yes, but $140USD back when the Aussie dollar was 50 US cents still seems quite a stretch. At the time I worked at McDonalds and got $4.50/hour. Can you imagine how many burgers I’d have to flip to buy a set of those puppies! 

Anyway, more than 10 years later I have a set of CNC machined and polished alloy levers for hydraulic brakes. Straitline make levers for all the big brands; Avid, Hayes and Shimano so most of you are covered.

All the pretty colours....

Did I mention colours? These things come in a range of anodized finishes including bright pink, red, blue, gold, green, titanium grey, or black, and white. Each lever is also polished to give a very smooth mirror finish (which is why you can't see the machining grooves on parts of the lever). As you can see from the photo the combination of the anodizing and polish gives it that extra bit of bling. The only downside of this it looks so good it'll make the rest of your bike look crap!

As you can see, the levers have their work cut of for them (lever body).... Note: Red is FAST

Installation:
I’ve only tested these on Shimano brakes so I can’t comment about Hayes and Avid. Installation is quite simple ONCE you know what you’re doing. I must admit I nearly wrecked a small bit of the Shimano lever assembly because I didn’t realize there was a tiny allen key screw in the top of the lever. Once I had figured that out it was a breeze. This is perhaps more of a Shimano problem (or my stupidity) than anything else. Straitline are also nice enough to provide another spring retention thingy just in case your old one is stuffed. 

The Feel:
Like the old Shimano levers the Straitline’s are really quite nice. It is a different feeling though that will come down to personal preference. Shimano lever blades are pretty much considered to be the bees knees of lever feel so even just equaling that is a huge positive. However, people that run the Shimano levers will know how easy it is to either bend or break them. As far as I know you cannot buy the lever blades separately so you have to either buy a whole new set of lever bodies or look for some after market levers such as these.

The Straitline’s have a much chunkier feel to them, bigger under your finger tips.  They also have a ridge to separate your fingers (if you two finger brake). The ridge is pretty cool though since I am not a two finger braker I don’t notice too much change in the functionality, my index finger just feels that little bit more snug with its own groove.  You may have also noticed the levers have lots of small divits to provide extra grip which is quite handy when you gloves get sweat drenched.

Durability:
I could quite easily not have had a section for this in the review, but since I had a gnarly crash that involved the lever I had to.

Thredbo; the last two times I’ve been there I have broken two levers. To stay in true form I had yet another big crash that again managed to focus the force of the crash onto one of the brake levers (not sure how). The end result was quite different to before, rather than a broken or severely bent lever I had nothing more than a badly scratched lever body and a massive clump of dirt attached to the lever. Weekend saved… Whilst this may seem like a great reason to grab a set of these I will warn that at some point I imagine the lever would break the lever body rather than other way around. It’s a pretty simple case of the weakest part failing first. I can confidently say the lever is stronger than the body. That said, you’re much more likely to bend or brake a lever than you are to destroy the lever body so I don’t think it’s really something to worry about.

Conclusion:
There you have it, functionality, strength and bling all rolled into one package. I can whole heartedly recommend Straitline levers as either an upgrade or replacement. The ‘upgrade’ lever packages RRP’s for $109 AUD and are available through XXIV.

Big thanks to Ken from XXIV for supplying the review samples.