144.7 Hoods Non-Aero (Black)

I have old Dia-Compe brakes, with the safety bars (which apparently are kind of a permanent attachment... :/ ), and I was tired of 1) seeing the aluminum/-ium brake lever housings, and tired of how uncomfortable they are to hold for long periods. So, I went out on a limb and bought these. I was waiting until I got new brake cables and housings to install these, along with a new bar wrap, but I got a wild hair up my butt and stayed up waaaay too late last night installing them. If you're unsure of how to do that, just go watch some YouTube videos. RJ The Bike Guy has a good one on how to install aero brake levers; the steps are very similar. And there's a British channel full of pretentious gear heads that has a good one on how to actually install the hoods, but I mostly ignored that. The install itself was pretty easy; just pull the damn things on, slowly and little by little, so as to avoid tearing them. The hiccups I ran into were due to the fact that I was using old cable, which was a little frayed (which makes things a LOT more difficult), and I didn't have the right tools. Both of which were my own fault, and will not be reflected in this review. Like I mentioned before, I have the brake levers with the safety/suicide handles on, which did complicate things a bit. Luckily, they're easy to remove most of the way. I'd've left them off, but the main axle on which all the levering force is centered is especially long, hollow, and threaded, to accept the hardware for those levers, and there's no way to replace those axles without just replacing the entire lever (which I will be, down the road). So, instead, I pulled the hoods on all the way, took a small screwdriver, and poked through into the hollow areas on the axles, pulled the hood down around those axles, and trimmed off the excess with a razor. Now the safety handles fit securely, operate normally, and the hood has a nice fit and finish to it. Took my first ride with them on today; a nice 10-miler with errands thrown in for good measure. Such a noticeable difference. Not just in looks, though that's definitely a major bonus, but also in comfort. I don't ride with gloves (yet), and that little extra cushioning/shock absorption is supreme. So so happy I finally got around to putting them on. My only gripe with these is that the nubbin from which the brake cable comes out isn't the tightest-fitting thing in the world on my levers. It might be on yours, but it's definitely not on mine. It's fine, you can't even see that it's a touch loose, but it's not perfect. You can't even feel it when riding. But you *can* feel it if you grab around that little peak and squeeze/shimmy. It's not a perfect fit. But hey, it's universal-ish. Can't win them all. Overall, I'm very very pleased.

As several posters stated , they do fit the 80's Día Campe brake levers. Maybe more.. They are vacuum sealed and made in Taiwan. Taiwan makes a lot of bicycles, and parts. They look good quality. They fit my 85 Fuji. Unfortunately they are described and measured very badly. One listing states they are 7X 5 inches, That's the size if a paperback book. What they are is approx. 7x5 cm. Check buyers feedback for better info. There is no telling what you buy from the garbled description till you get it. Edit: when I went to install the hoods I found that there is notch to load the cable and no rotating the fitting into position. The whole brake cable needs to be removed and re treaded from the brake levers through the sheathing , and reattached to brakes and crimped. This was more then I wanted to do for a cosmetic item, at this time. The polished brake levers look fine without the hoods.

This lever hood is pretty well molded to fit the lever hinge housing commonly found on the handlebars of a vintage 10-spd roadbike (in my case a Sears Roebuck model mfg in the late 1960's). However keep in mind that these hoods aren't designed for ALL brake lever setups. In my case the handlebars have two sets of brake levers, one set upper and one set lower (a classic Dia-Compe setup). These hoods are not molded to fit brake lever setups like mine. I had to use my knife to cut/modify them by adding a hole on the anterior side of each hood to accomodate the mounting bolt/screw where the upper set of brake levers attaches/pivots. After I added the hole it basically worked, although not perfectly. I do need to grease up the upper lever a little because it is rubbing on the hood just slightly, but that's fine. My bike is just a commuter. It isn't a show piece. Oh, and it was a bit tricky to wrap the handlebar tape once I had the hood in place so if you're planning to wrap your bars, do that first and then install these hoods afterward.

Having an older road bike from the 80's, I needed to replace the aging brake hoods. These fit over my brake handles perfectly. In addition, they were fairly priced even with the shipping fees (total $12) and arrived faster than estimated. My LBS quoted anywhere from $15-20 for a pair of these, which I would have had to special order and pay for shipping as well. And auctions on eBay.com weren't really priced much better than Niagara Cycle Works in general. Like the previous review, these brake hoods do not have "Dia Compe" on the them, which I found a bit disappointing. Instead, they were branded as "Cane Creek," which appear to be the most prevalent brand for those old-school brake hoods. They work fairly well: moderately cushy, very gripped, easy to install, and come in a variety of colors; I've seen them even in hot pink online! All in all, an excellent product with very fair pricing and fast shipping from Niagara Cycle Works.

I bougt these brake lever hoods for my Dia-Compe brake levers and they do fit quite well. I mounted them nearly a month ago. Before these, I had Weinmann brake hoods on my Dia-Compe brake levers, which had to be replaced. According to another review, these brake hoods also fit for Shimano 600 non-aero brake levers. On my Dia-Compe brake levers, the rubber is pushed down a little bit when you pull the lever. But that's also the case with the original Shimano 600 brake hoods and with the old Weinmann brake hoods I had before. Meanwhile, Dia-Compe produces their old-style brake levers 202 and 204 again and the rubbers for these brake levers (DC204QC COVER) are available, too. But it seems that these covers are a little bit tighter and do fit to fewer brake lever models. That's why I decided to buy the Cane Creek hoods. I did not find any other available and reasonably priced brake hoods besides the Cane Creek and the Dia-Compe hoods. Shimano still sells the 600 brake hoods as spare parts, but they are sold at a higher price (I saw an offer at more than twice the price of these hoods) and I don't know if the Shimano hoods fit on my Dia-Compe brake levers. For the above reasons, I can recommend these Cane Creek brake hoods. These brake lever hoods are produced in Japan. So probably you don't need to worry that there are any toxic ingedients in the rubber.

"Marginal" fitment on Suntour Superbe levers. Levers work, with some friction from hood. Since Superbe parts are no longer available, this is the best fitting option left for vintage levers. About 1/4" shy in reaching the handlebar.

These have been excellent replacement hoods for my vintage touring bikes. The hoods look great, are very soft and grippy and hold up very well to the elements. Some trimming was required around my brake levers but that is to be expected. Use a sharp razor blade and carefully trim a little bit at a time until a perfect fit is achieved. Very nice product.

I used these on a vintage 10-speed that has Weinmann "red dot" brake levers. I had no problem installing them, and they are certainly an improvement to no hoods at all, but they are a bit short - leaving a gap between the bar tape and the bottom of this hood despite the bar tape being fairly thick. Btw, if the logo bothers you on your vintage bicycle, one can use a sharp blade to remove most of the logo, followed by relatively coarse sandpaper to smooth the surface.