just bought myself a shiney new mountain bike yesterday. is there any particular reason why the levers controlling the front and rear brakes are reversed in relation to that of a motorcycle?

Hmmmm........... the only reason that I can think of is that back when bikes used to have drum brakes as the only brakes for a bike (and only for the rear of the bike) , the levers were on the right side of the handlebar. When calipers were introduced, they were placed on the front wheel and the only space left for the brake lever is on the left side of the handlebar.

I don't think there's any reason that will prompt us not to exchange the levers, though.

However, a word of caution if you do exchange the levers. I am right handed but I can easily do a stoppie on an MTB using my left hand. Because of that, I had always been hesitant to swith the brake levers. :)

(I should also get an MTB for myself. Because of my stomach, my VFR already has a higher center of gravity. :crazy::crazy: :crazy: )

i see..........thanks for the info.

What i did to my mt. bike was I interchanged my brake levers coz its more laborious to interchange my skut's brake levers. :D

Now I got used on the motorcycle brake lever orientation. Comfy using my mt. bike's brakes. ;)

just bought myself a shiney new mountain bike yesterday. is there any particular reason why the levers controlling the front and rear brakes are reversed in relation to that of a motorcycle?


hi mykell9999!

hmmm, nice question :C before having motorbikes, i owned (even up to now) bicycles, and i noticed that reversed-orientation of the former's brake levers. it could be for the lack of clutch lever for bicycles, so the usual position for this lever for motorbikes is set for the front brake instead for bicycles. on the other hand, probably bikes' designers used the usual notation of left-to-right and front-to-rear and combined the two, producing left-is to-front and right-is to-rear, kinda logical, isn't it? :bouncy:

mer_solomon