In the 'adding insult to injury' category, I thought this was going to be expensive to fix, and require leaving my bicycle in the shop for a while, leaving me at the mercy of the sluggish public bus schedule to get to and from work. I've got a fair amount of experience tinkering with bicycles, but this was a repair I've never had to deal with yet. But to my pleasant surprise, I rolled my bike to the shop where I bought it, and showed them the broken lever . The mechanic on duty showed me a comparable replacement part and then asked, "Would you like to leave that here, or do it yourself?" *ding* ! The magic words. Of course, I did want to do it myself, but was feeling stumped as to how to remove the hand grips which seemed fairly well stuck to the handlebars. Since they were so worn out, he recommended I put on a new set. When I admitted that I had no idea how to coax a sticky rubber grip onto a handlebar, he simply suggested rubbing alcohol. Easy.
- Grand total for a set of replacement levers and new hand grips: $26.
- The satisfaction of it at home: priceless.
The sleek replacement lever.
My bicycle, mid-repair. One lever and grip installed on the right side of the photo, the other side in-process. You can see the bare handlebar, sans brake lever. Installing it was simple with an allen wrench for the lever, and rubbing alcohol for the grip. Total time: about 15 minutes!
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