So, Brake hoses are annoying me.

Sounds strange I know, but basically, with the levers positioned where I like them they are angled down quite a bit. This means that when I fit a bar harness the brake hoses come under considerable pressure.
So far they have survivied but I don’t know if they would longer term, and looking down at them stressed like that bothers me more than it probably should.

I have shimano XT brakes, the latest ones and the hose comes straight out of the lever and points forward 15 or 20 degrees taking the hoses right into the path of the bar bag.

Does anyone know of any brakes with a bonjo style outlet from the lever, or can suggest which brake levers keep the hose out of the way best?

Thanks :D

Can you not use spacers between the bar and harness to give more lever/cable space?

There's no reason why you couldn't fit a 90 degree bango to the XT brakes. The present fitting only screws in, so it should be a straight swap.

Not just me then......

The foam spacers supplied by Revelate with the Sweet Roll do help a little but it's still not ideal.

I looked for an alternative (90 degree) fitting for my XT levers (775 style) - and didn't find anything suitable.

My options list so far looks like this.

a) Hope brakes - no problems with hose routing as they can exit vertically downwards
b) BB7s - I run these on the fatbike and tourer and find them OK and the routing is a bit more parallel to the bars
c) XT or XTR Dual control levers - the hose exits parallel to and beneath the bars but I've never tried them and the seem a bit "fiddly" should anything break away from home.
d) Loop bars (as fitted to my fatbike) - the whole bag then sits further forward and away from the hoses
e) High rise bars - if the bag could be attached to the lower part beside the stem that might create some clearance.
f) put up with it and leave lots of spare hose so it can be squeezed into a better position
g) have the levers more parallel to the ground (old school) instead of angled down following the angle of my arms/hands

I suspect that a combination of e), f) and g) may be my first port of call, though an experiment with the loop bars is also likely.

After a little research it would seem that the XT (775) levers are 8mm, there's no reason why you can't just buy an 8mm banjo and bolt and swap the fitting on the line.


Maybe this: http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Mode ... elID=14854

Or this: http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Mode ... elID=67212

Or maybe this: http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Mode ... elID=20424

In all of those examples, the banjo end is for attaching to the caliper. The tapered fitting is the one that fits into the lever, with an olive. I've looked at the Goodridge fittings (I've actually used them a couple of times) and there seems to be no way to make it work.

I had the same problem so angled the levers straight out, not ideal but far better than running the risk of having a hydraulic brake cable snap when you least expect it. Fitting Mary bars solved it properly for me though.

In all of those examples, the banjo end is for attaching to the caliper. The tapered fitting is the one that fits into the lever, with an olive. I've looked at the Goodridge fittings (I've actually used them a couple of times) and there seems to be no way to make it work.

That's a bit sneeky ... using 2 different threads on the same system. Am I right to think that there's not enough material around the fitting for a banjo to seal against either ?

I'll have a word with some old contacts at Earls ... I'm sure there must be a 90 degree fitting that shares that thread

Jones bars, BB7's, Nokon cables...works for me! ;]

I take it all back ^^^ :?

A quick twirl of spanners and I know that the fitting is M8 x .75 (quite common on supercharger water injection systems), a brief phone call informs me that a banjo bolt of that size doesn't exist ... FFS how hard do Shimano want to make this ?

I'm not certain yet but it would appear that the fitting is parallel but the female is tapered but that's nothing a couple of minutes with a tap couldn't sort out. At present it looks like the only option would be to get a pair of banjo bolts machined up ... that's assuming that there's enough material around the fitting hole for a banjo to seal against, there is on Deores but I don't know about XT.

its annoying than it should be isnt it!

Apparently, so im told my M785's are different again. Although I'm not convinced.

Its difficult to find full specs for the fittings for various brakes.

Thinking back I'm sure I've seen hopes with banjo fittings, possible some older formula ones. The hunt is on.

Yep - Hopes and some (cheaper) Formulas resolve the problem

s8tannorm wrote:FFS how hard do Shimano want to make this ?

They really do plough theor own furrow

At the risk of sounding like STW - Hopes. Work for me and confident that if I need to bugger around with them the manufacturer sould be able to help out.