Customer Reviews

Cane Creek 144.7 Hoods Non-Aero (Black)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Package contained 2 non-aero hoods, black, with "Cane Creek" written on both sides in a plain font. Nothing gimmicky.

I have two older Shimano brake levers. I bought the bike used, so I can't give an age, but I would guess that they are at least 20 years old. Probably older. The hoods that were on there were some old gum-colored Dia Compe hoods that fit perfectly, but needed replaced. I bought these and some new black handlebar tape to spruce up the look of the handlebars.

I've only just put them on, so I can't speak to the longevity, but I can say that they do install OK. Just flexible enough to get into place, but not sloppy. The lever opening is a bit small, in my opinion, but I'm not faulting the hoods, it's probably just my particular setup/situation.

They seem nicely made, and provide a firm resistance when you position your hands on the hoods. For under 10 bucks, I'm not going to worry about these too much.

I will add to this if something worth mentioning comes up with use.

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.

Dia Compe Brake Lever Hoods Black Pair Non Aero

This product is the best non aero hood for the price available to consumers. Niagra Cycle was very helpful with communication, fast delivery, and packed items well for shipping. They even wrote me a thank you email for my purchase. Kudos to Niagra Cycle and Amazon.com for providing such great service and quality.

Good value for the price since they last for at least 23 yrs. That's how old the others were that I had to replace.
I would definitely recommend this product.

did not fit my shimano 600 brake levers. i had to cut them and then they still didnt come all the way to the handle bar. made for a different brake.

The hood is well made of durable rubber. It fits just fine but I did have to make the hole where the brake cable enters just a bit larger. One tip I would offer is that before pulling the hood over the brake handle assembly would be to spray the inside of the hood with silicone and this will facilitate it slipping over much easier.

I bought a road bike with bare handlebars that I wrapped with tan colored handlebar tape, and these gum colored hoods matched my color scheme. I haven't had to install hoods on my own before as most of my bikes already came with some on them. When I finally got these on they looked really nice, complemented my handlebar tape, and with some tinkering were aesthetically what I was looking for.

That's about it for the good stuff, though; first off, as the picture clearly demonstrates, these are stamped "Cane Creek" and not Dia-Compe. I knew this when buying but still don't appreciate the mis-labeling. Second, these don't have any sort of hole in the side to allow installation of secondary levers (also known as safety levers or extension levers, the ones that let you brake from the top of the bar). By direct consequence if you remove the pin holding the levers and slide these on and then try to re-install the levers, there's no way to re-insert the pin back in unless you slice a hole into the side. Given that I wanted to install safety levers, I had to do this anyway, and it was fairly easy and the result was decent with a sharp knife.

It would be very difficult to install these in any other way; if your brakes don't have safety levers but you have a threaded pin that protrudes a little bit to allow you to install them, there's no way you'll be able to stretch these around that. If the pin lies flush with the rest of the brake or your brakes don't allow safeties, then you're somewhat in luck, except that the rubber this is made out of is extraordinarily stiff. Soaking them in scalding water for ten minutes had no effect. You'll have to completely remove the brake from the clamps on the handlebar and slide these on from the back. So to recapitulate, if you have old brakes whose lever pin protrudes out the side of the brake, you'll need to drive it out with a hammer, slide this hood on, slice a hole into it with something sharp, and then reassemble the entire brake over again to get it on.

And worst of all, the absurdly stiff rubber makes it very difficult to wrap handlebar tape. With most tape packages there are small pieces of "finishing" tape that are usually put under the brake hoods to give it a smooth and even looking finish, but these hoods are completely impossible to pull back without tearing, which happened with one of them. I had to cut these finishing pieces by an inch and insert them barely a millimeter under the hood to get it to work. Again, the end result was nice, but complicated. My cheap rubber hoods on my other bike folded back completely and made the process way easier. As you can tell I was really dissatisfied and believe this product warrants two stars, but I was pleased enough with the end result when all was said and done that I gave it three.

Considering that these are almost ten dollars, decide if it's worth it to you, and consider dropping by your local bike store to see what they have instead and how stretchy their material is.

Nice product, but required modifications to fit the Dia Compe brakes on my 70's era Raleigh Grand Prix road bike. I wish they didn't say Cane Creek but I can't complain about the qualtity of the material. In the end, I'll recommend this product to others.

easy to install. more comfortable than bare brakes but not by too much. i mostly bought these to keep the original look of a vintage bike left in a barn for 15 years that i am fixing.

My bike came with "safety levers" and no hoods. I removed the safety levers, cut off the mounting stud for them, and installed these hoods instead. They fit snugly; I won't have to worry about them falling off. Installation is best done from the bottom.

Once on, I have found them to be more-or-less comfortable. I'm slightly disappointed in the shape of the portion under the lever. My wife has older versions on her bike, and it's nicely curved on the side under the lever. This new one is mostly flat with sharper corners. But it's rounded where it really matters, on the top. Overall, it's a nice improvement over what was (wasn't) there before.