Gang:
The only thing I might add to Sheldon's great post is that the current generation of Record brake levers don't have a spring, and the spring tension at the caliper is adjustable.
Grant McLean Toronto.Ca
Sheldon "Springs" Brown Newtonville, Massachusetts wrote:
In the late '80s, there was a major change in brake design, initiated by DiaCompe, then copied by Shimano, and later by all other brake manufacturers. Instead of a very strong spring in the calipers/cantilevers, they installed a very weak spring, so weak that it could not reliably retract the brakes by itself.
To help the weak spring out, they added a new, also weak spring to each brake lever. Thus the cable was both pushed and pulled back to the rest position when you released the brake lever. As a result of this design, they were able to make the total sproinginess of the two combined springs very much lighter than the stiff springs needed for the older one-spring system.
This was also accompanied by various friction reducing features, including lined housing and nylon spring pads, ball-bearing caliper action, plus the improved cable routing of "aero" levers.
This system was called "BRS" (Balanced Response System) by DiaCompe; "SLR" (Shimano Linear Response) by Shimano.
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