I picked up a Fred Bar real cheap one day 5 years ago at least. 50$ I think. I’d never even mounted it until last weekend. I don’t think I’ve ever had a steerer long enough to accomodate one, but I have this chinese carbon fork for that is super over-long for the bike I have it on (My bikepacking bike hard-tail) so I thought I’d try it. The way the dopey thing is built, you cannot actually use it as a “spacer” in a tensioned head-set stack, as there is actually no room, for a spacer above it, so the Fred Bar can only be used on the very top of your fork.
These things are a ridiculous price for what they are as well. Bikepacking is the new golf.
I came to the conclusion the other day, that I dont have to keep collecting shit from the bike coop where I volunteer, I can donate all my shit to them, and THEY can store it! Starting on the Swedish death cleaning. But then one of guys asked me if I want these…
Yeah, it is really, the reservoir up top instead of down on the caliper. I saw one in the flesh the other day for the first time and didnt click what it was. I thought it was a cross-top thingo.
Looks like a little v-8 engine ! Will see them tonight. Maybe I could build up a bike around them at the coop. Found this image of some yesterday.
Duuuuude! I wanted a set of those very badly back in the mid 2000s when I was trying to put together a drop-bar hydro disc braked 400x45 kinda bike. There were not many options.
I made this reference pic for myself.
-Top left is someone’s homebrew setup running cables to a pinch bolt that has been drilled/tapped into the Hope levers.
-Top right is an older hope system. Bottom left is a Hope system but using individual master cylinders, before they made the full V-twin system you have.
-Very bottom right is Magura.
-Bottom center is a weird system Santana tandems used that had the master cylinder mounted to a DT shifter boss (rear brake only system).
So being a cheapskate I attempted my own version of the upper left pic homebuilt system, but with extra-cheapie Hayes brakes I had laying around.
Kinda hard to see what’s going on. The stubby silver tube is clamped by the levers’ normal handlebar clamp. I drilled and counterbored the tube to accept a housing ferrule, this is the housing stop, from there the brake cable travels to a pinch bolt which I drilled/tapped into the lever blade.
I used steerer tube spacer type canti brake hanger and a long bolt through the normal pinch bolt of the levers’ bar clamps to hold the levers in that location. I didn’t trim the hose or anything at all, just looped around the head tube.
It all worked actually quite well. (keeping in mind BB7 Roads were state of the art).
I think the key is to minimize cable/housing length and maximize hydraulic tube length. If one of the issues with cable systems is slack, stretch, and friction around corners then this makes sense. And in practice was my experience.
Better than BB7s, better than the later TRP HY/RD, better than Haxes CX. I haven’t really ridden a modern GRX or SRAM hydro system so can’t compare, but of course this was before those existed.
that fucker is full @cousinmosquito and i look forward to you putting it on a mtb with a 72 deg ht and then riding through a field of poop. you are my hero, dont tell anyone.
