“Small Hand” Short Reach Front Brake Lever

I am curious to know if anyone has any experience, or better still comparative dimensions, to share between the stock front brake lever and the catalog optional lever for “smaller than normal hands” for the R100R/GS/GSPD from ’91 to ’95 (the same lever combination was used on 8v K75/100’s from ’84 to ’95).

The stock lever is #32-71-2-314-027. The optional “small hand” lever is #32-72-1-457-058.

I seemed to be having a slight reach problem during a recent long trip on my ’93 R100R and wondered if the “small hand” option might be worth considering.

Thanks

8V K75? Man, I want one of those.

Oops. Shows that I never did understand those "bricks"! I guess I should have read your treastise on K-Bike Mechanical History.

This may not be the answer you are searching for but,.....

When we had a customer that had smaller hands, we would take a large piece of dowel and place it between the lever and the grip as close to the pivot as possible so the lever couldn't pull to the handle bars. Then, using a piece of pipe (I had an old Yamaha fork tube I used for this), bend the lever straighter (rather than the stock curl). Keep having the customer try the lever and bend until it felt "right" to him or her.

I have done this sort of fix before, mainly "restoring" alloy levers on my 1970's Triumphs and BSAs. These were all fairly thin sections. I do not think this will work on my R100R as the "root" is very robust (the green arrow of the sketch below). However, I think I have an lever in my stash that I collected from a wrecked GS that is already messed-up on which I can experiment,

What I am hoping is that the "small hand" lever will really just position the lever 3/8" (10mm) or so closer to the handlebar as I have tried to show in the red image of a lever superimposed on the standard lever (this is a the limit of my graphics ability). There is at least 3/8" clearance between the handle bar grip when I really squeeze the lever so I know that there is room.



Still hoping that someone has some experience of the "small hand" lever.....

The "small hands" lever looks identical to the standard one; only the cam which contacts the master cylinder piston is different. This causes the effort of the rider to occur closer to the bar. Ironically, we removed quite a few of these when BMW was installing them as standard because riders complained that the brake felt "spongy" to them. I wish I'd saved a few.

I've bent a few standard levers for people with very small hands by heating them. This gets me in trouble every time I mention it.

Thanks for the info. What I want is the lever slightly closer to the handlebar so it does not seem that the small hands lever is going to help. I have been through my stash of parts and found an old lever that I will tweak a little to see if I get any improvement. Will see.