NOS DIA-COMPE rubber brake lever hoods frequently come up for auction on eBay. The problem (at least for me) is that most of these rubber hoods have little circles on each side that you can punch out to use with "suicide levers" - the unsafe "safety" brake lever extensions.
We reviled those at our shop back in the day, so much so much that we refused to sell suicide levers and removed them from any new bike that came equipped with them.
The idea looked great except most brake extension levers were poorly designed. The ones for DIA-COMPE/Weinmann levers could easily come loose and pop out of the lever leaving the rider with their hands on the tops of the bars and only 1 brake - usually the rear!
Cane Creek the inheritor of the DIA-COMPE product line in the US makes some replacement hoods for DIA-COMPE/Weinmann levers. All of the ones I've seen so far have those stupid punchouts on the sides.
I've crazy glued the cracks in several old sets of Weinmann hoods rather than use hoods that remind me of suicide levers.
When someone gets a set of the Grand Bois hoods, please let us know what they look like. I suspect that they may be the same as the ones that Cane Creek is selling?
Regards,
Chas. Colerich Oakland, CA USA
Nick Ozerov wrote:
> Thanks Kris!
>
> CR really works!
>
> Just an hour after my posting my search for Weinmann hoods, I received a
> call from a CR member with a "hot tip" regarding the Weinmann hoods I have
> been hunting for.
>
> Grand Bois Cycles has them available on their website for about $27 per pair
> (good luck navigating the website in Japanese!) If you do a search on the
> web for "Grand Bois Cycles English" you may find the English order form.
> Enter Weinmann brake hood (white or tan) on the order form and submit the
> order form. They will e-mail you a quote and accept Paypal payments.
>
> These hoods are not NOS but appear to be high quality reproductions.
>
> Nick Ozerov
> San Antonio, Texas, USA