Is it worth swapping brakes over?

[smutchin]

I don't have a problem riding a bike with the brakes the wrong way round - it doesn't take long to get used to it either way.

However, I did once get on a bike and not realise the brakes were set up that way until I needed to make an emergency stop and almost didn't.

It also varies between individuals - my colleague wasn't able to get used to the brakes being the wrong way round and ended up having a fairly nasty crash on a mountain descent while riding a hired bike in Mallorca.

So, to answer the question, it largely depends on how your daughter feels about riding the bike, and whether she's likely to be riding any other bikes with the brakes set up the other way round. But if you're confident of being able to swap the cables over yourself, it's probably worth doing.

 

[helston90]

Turned out you were all right - it literally was a 15 second job.
On the other hand I have a feeling he sold it because he couldn't get the gears to work. They'd not set the H-L limits at all, the thing which kept the chain from falling off the cassette at the bottom was using the tension in the cable meaning the shifter ran out out rotation before it got to the big end of the cassette and shifted horribly in between.
Undo gear cable- set limit- reattach cable- slight tweak of tension for indexing- go.
Still thinking of replacing the gear cable and outer though, it's no where near as smooth to pull as I'd like.
Thanks all for your help.

 

[ColinJ]

Turned out you were all right - it literally was a 15 second job.

They said "a two minute job", which would have been pushing it - four or five minutes, sure, no problem.

If you literally did the job in 15 seconds then you should put a video on YouTube of you doing it - it would be very impressive to see it!

Anyway, well done for sorting the brake problem out and good luck with the gears.

 

[Ajax Bay]

If you literally did the job in 15 seconds

Literallist pedant. We know what @helston90 meant.

 

[ColinJ]

Literallist pedant. We know what @helston90 meant.

I literally took him literally!