# Sluggish brake levers



## jzm (Jun 7, 2007)

When braking, the Red levers seem so sluggish compared to my DA7800. Is it because of the under the bar tape routing?
I'm contemplating two options and need some comments from the more experienced Sram users (i just took the leap a week ago)

Option 1: Use shifter cables instead of brake cables to further reduce friction???

Option 2; Use discarded hydraulic lines (for mtbikes) instead of standard brake cable housings - aren't hydraulic housings designed to resist compression and expansion, and it seems that they're internally lined with a material that has less friction than standard shifter housings.

I'm very pleased with my red but the brake levers' sluggishness is just something that keeps me from saying it's completely better than my DA7800 

Thanks!


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## Cyclo-phile (Sep 22, 2005)

Stick with good quality brake housing for the flexibility. You'll also need to stick with brake cables for the correct barrel end. A more likely cause of your problems is tight bends in the housing around the bars or between the bars and frame or front brake. If you can't resist the urge to spend money, check out Gore or Nokon housing.


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## -dustin (Jan 11, 2009)

Something about the Red calipers makes them feel spongy. Every set of Red calipers has this feel. Except mine. And I am shocked. For shits and giggles I thew Nokons on my calipers, and they feel as good as Force calipers.


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## cosmo333 (Oct 5, 2005)

do you have ferrules on the housing ends? SRAM does for brakes, Shimano doesn't. I've seen many builds come in the shop with the same complaint and after putting ferrules on suddenly great braking. Same for shifters-ferrules at all points on SRAM.


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## Jlitespeed (Oct 21, 2008)

I too have expericenced the sluggishness and spongy feeling on my Red brakes. I built up a new bike using the Yokozuna Reaction Cable Kit. The brakes feel awesome! They actually feel better than my DA 7800 brakes on the other bike.


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## alias33 (Sep 15, 2008)

Jlitespeed said:


> I too have expericenced the sluggishness and spongy feeling on my Red brakes. I built up a new bike using the Yokozuna Reaction Cable Kit. The brakes feel awesome! They actually feel better than my DA 7800 brakes on the other bike.



this is exactly what I did with my force groupo, yokozuna shoulda came stock on these parts, its like night and day with the brakes and the shifting, its like the shifters are reading my mind, I gotta look down to make sure it shifted, sooooooo smoooth!


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## blbike (May 12, 2006)

I'm going to revive this thread to see if anyone has any additional comments. I've got two SRAM setups. One 2010 Force, one mix of Red and 2010 Force. For the brakes the full Force setup is use the Gore Ride On cables, somewhat smooth but overall feel is sluggish. The Red lever/ Force calipers are using the Yokozuna cables. This was very finicky and tricky to setup because of the stiffness of the cables, had to keep cutting tiny bits of housing out until the cable would stop pushing the calipers. This is a pretty sluggish setup as well. Both stop very well, but compared to the DA 7800 I'd been using the last five years the feel is night and day different (in a bad way). Any thoughts? I think part of the problem is the tight bends the cables have to make from the levers to the groove on the bars, other is just probably the caliper build.


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## peabody (Oct 17, 2005)

had red with gore, felt like crap. have rival with jagwire and it feels awesome.


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## frdfandc (Nov 27, 2007)

I'm using 2010 Force with 2009 Rival brakes. I used the cables that came with the shifters. Braking is very smooth. 

I suspect poor cable routing/too short cables.


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