{"id":17718,"date":"2014-01-04T00:10:32","date_gmt":"2014-01-04T05:10:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/?p=17718"},"modified":"2014-01-04T17:39:56","modified_gmt":"2014-01-04T22:39:56","slug":"brake-lever-insulation-for-winter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/2014\/01\/04\/brake-lever-insulation-for-winter\/","title":{"rendered":"Brake Lever Insulation for Winter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/gallery\/v\/acquired_stuff\/salsa_mukluk_2\/IMG_7812.jpg.html?g2_imageViewsIndex=2\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" title=\"Heatshrink tubing applied to Avid Speed Dial 7 levers to provide some insulation from the cold.\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/gallery\/d\/105539-2\/IMG_7812.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Riding a bicycle in winter is made easier by insulating one&#8217;s body from the metal frame, which acts as a heatsink pulling away warmth. Bicycle grips, saddle, and boots do this fairly well, but metal brake levers can quickly chill one&#8217;s fingers even with gloves on. I&#8217;d looked into some carbon fiber brakes such as the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tektro.com\/_english\/01_products\/01_prodetail.php?pid=94&amp;sortname=Lever&amp;sort=1&amp;fid=3\">Tektro MT5.0<\/a>\u00a0on the <a href=\"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/gallery\/v\/acquired_stuff\/salsa_mukluk_2\/\">Mukluk<\/a>, but $50+ seemed like a lot to spent for just a bit of extra insulation.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier today I came across <a href=\"http:\/\/forums.mtbr.com\/fat-bikes\/insulating-brake-levers-893422-post10914409.html#post10914409\">this post on MTBR in a thread about insulated brake levers<\/a>\u00a0which suggested using some heatshrink tubing to insulate the blade itself, so I&#8217;ve decided to give that a go. This was pretty easy to do, and while there are a couple slightly visible high spots and subtle wrinkles the curved part where my finger goes is smooth, and it seems to feel good.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll give this a go tomorrow and see how it works out, but just basic experimentation in the basement is showing it to be warmer than the bare metal lever. Now if I could only find something to do about the metal clamp at the end of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ergon-bike.com\">Ergon<\/a> grips&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><strong>UPDATE<\/strong>: After a 2+ hour ride in the snow at Bald Mountain I&#8217;m going to declare this a success. The brake lever never once felt cold, I had to consciously try to feel for a differing texture, and things just worked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Riding a bicycle in winter is made easier by insulating one&#8217;s body from the metal frame, which acts as a heatsink pulling away warmth. Bicycle&#8230;<\/p>\n<div class=\"more-link-wrapper\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/2014\/01\/04\/brake-lever-insulation-for-winter\/\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Brake Lever Insulation for Winter<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cycling","category-making-things","entry"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17718"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17723,"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17718\/revisions\/17723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}