My watch master had an accident while commuting last year-end,
which is fine and all (well, it's not fine),
but he totally smashed the top tube and left fork blade
of the main bike he uses for Kansai cyclocross,
so he ended up having to race with just his other bike.
The master is currently a C1-category racer,
but he's been stuck in C2 for about 10 years
(and usually comes up just short on points),
which he joked about with a homemade sticker he forgot to remove,
and that inattention was what caused the accident.
↑Test saddles are usually gaudy colors that don't match many frames
to avoid being borrowed and not returned,
but this one happens to match the frame's blue and orange,
so I tease him saying he must have borrowed and kept it.
In reality, it's past its rental period and was being sold off,
so he actually bought it—not borrowed it.
We swapped parts from a GIANT TCX over to a Ridley X-Night SL.
The master's brake and shift levers are SRAM,
but SRAM brake hoses come in 5 types.
However, for road bikes, there are basically only 2 types
(but there is one unique exception, which I'll explain later).
In the diagram above, the very top is Double Compression,
where both sides of the hose have an olive
and a compression nut attached.
Next is Beveled Banjo,
which uses a banjo that's crimped and non-removable,
attached to the lever side.
Like all the others, on the end where the hose terminates,
an olive and compression nut are attached.
Next is Threaded Inline Crimp,
where the hose screws into the caliper side.
The next two are versions with crimped banjos on the caliper side,
differing in how the banjo and O-ring relate:
Silver Banjo and Black Banjo.
For any given lever or caliper,
only one type of hose is compatible.
However, even hoses other than Double Compression
come with two sets of small parts like olives and compression nuts,
so if you accidentally buy the wrong hose type,
you can cut off the banjo end and use it as Double Compression.
The banjo portion of the Beveled Banjo is silver,
but the difference from Silver Banjo is
that one side of the banjo has a bevel angle.
"Bevel" means a slant or angle,
and another example you might see in cycling is
Maruishi makes a bicycle with a shaft drive instead of a chain drive,
and the conical gear at the end of the driveshaft
is called a bevel gear.
In the road bike category, it's handy to remember:
mechanical shift 11S levers = Beveled Banjo,
and 12S eTap levers from then on = Double Compression.
At the very top of the diagram it says
RED AXS (2-piece), which refers to
when there used to be a single-piece caliper carved from one billet—
that older road disc brake caliper type where the caliper side
had an add-on banjo bending the oil line 90°,
while 2-piece refers to current calipers with parts split left and right
and bolted together, with the hose installed straight.
By this classification, 1-piece calipers use Beveled Banjo,
and 2-piece calipers use Double Compression,
but RED AXS (2-piece) is specifically annotated
because it relates to the unique exception I mentioned earlier.
I ordered one Beveled Banjo hose kit.
With Double Compression, by the way, we keep stock on hand
and still have inventory. The Ridley frame routes all hoses from the handlebar
through the inside of the stem to the headtube in a fully internal setup,
and in this case, since it's mechanical single-ring up front,
the rear derailleur cable also has to be internal.
Since Ridley needs longer hose lengths than GIANT,
we can't reuse the same sides,
but I did something cheap and reused
the rear brake Beveled Banjo hose on the Ridley's front brake
(this was my call, not the master's request).
So I only needed to order for the rear brake.
↑The banjo with the bevel has O-rings attached to both sides.
↑Before O-ring installation
↑After O-ring installation
This is the bracket cover removed—it's sealed with 4 Phillips-head tapping screws
(←a ridiculous spec). The image above is the left lever.
The right side is where the banjo attaches,
and the left side is the reservoir tank.
In other words, even if you're just replacing the Beveled Banjo hose,
you have to open the DOT brake fluid cap—a ridiculous design.
↑This is where the bevel actually matters.
The banjo is now installed.
Of the 5 hose types, only Beveled Banjo
has the spec where "the lever side is not the end of the hose."
What this means is that this banjo won't fit through a handlebar hole,
which limits internal frame routing to top-entry only.
You might think, "Why not just go with Double Compression
on the current 12S component?", but the master runs
all his 11S sprockets with Shimano,
and most of his rear wheel hubs can't be swapped to SRAM XDR freebodies,
making the upgrade costly outside of the component cost,
so we skipped 12S this time.
The lever and caliper are the same models as what came with the GIANT,
but the lever piston action felt spongy, so I swapped it
for a different one in near-new condition.
"Near-new condition" is my way of saying
"new old stock bought at auction,"
and if he'd already had one, that would be fine,
but if we're buying a lever and caliper set just for this build,
wouldn't it have made sense to go 12S?
→But then we'd be back to the "need new wheels" conversation.
Shape the diaphragm to match the cover's underside
and install the diaphragm.
Getting this rubber diaphragm piece
to stay straight against the bracket while tightening down
the cover's 4 screws is pretty annoying.
At this stage, it's better to thread the hose end
through the bracket cover beforehand.
You can technically slip it on from the outside (brake lever side),
but it's a real pain.
The right front lever hose is reused from the former left rear,
as I mentioned earlier.
The master said he had "spare hoses too"
and brought some he'd bought before,
but those were Black Banjos,
so they didn't work.
This banjo is on the caliper side, not the lever side,
and unlike Beveled Banjo, it has no bevel
and the O-ring is single-sided, not both sides,
so it's completely incompatible.
This is the "unique exception" I mentioned:
Mechanical 11S lever / 1-piece caliper = Beveled Banjo
and eTap 12S lever / 2-piece caliper = Double Compression,
but the very first RED eTap 12S levers
required Black Banjo with 1-piece calipers.
↑From SRAM's official video
This shows the 1-piece era RED caliper with a Black Banjo attached.
↑This is from SRAM's official documentation
showing the Beveled Banjo parts list.
Unconfirmed, but for the RED 1-piece caliper,
the black banjo in the top row, second from the right
that installs with a compression nut might work.
If so, there's a possibility of using
RIVAL22 lever with RED 1-piece caliper.
However, since Black Banjo
has the lever side as the hose end
and there's no "banjo with a bevel attached as an add-on
rather than original crimping,"
hose kits other than Beveled Banjo won't work
with levers designed for Beveled Banjo.
If what the master brought had been Beveled Banjo,
I would have assembled the components on January 2nd
and made the January 5th Kansai Cyclocross at Kibou no Oka,
but since it wasn't, I had to have the distributor
ship it out on the 6th (their first business day),
and assembled it on the 7th when it arrived.
When buying this Black Banjo hose kit,
the master didn't just grab it and head to the register—
he actually asked the shop staff if it was compatible
and got them to say yes before buying.
So I said, "Then why don't you ask for a refund?",
but he said he didn't have the receipt
and bought it ages ago
(the packaging does look old)
so he decided to let it go.
The official description just says "Compatible with RED eTAP HRD"
without emphasis like "RED eTAP HRD (ONLY!)".
In defense of this, many small parts listed as "compatible with Dura-Ace"
also work with Ultegra or 105 from the same generation.
Brake pads and shoes are identical,
and while rotors and chains are different parts, they're compatible.
So saying "compatible with RED" might reasonably be interpreted
to include FORCE and below components too.
But this price tag is poorly written.
It reads like SRAM works with everything.
The current MSRP on this is ¥6,780 tax included,
so it's definitely something old.
My components work with Double Compression,
so I could ask to take this off his hands for personal use.
Hey master, you watching?
I'd take it at the price on the tag.
I asked the master which shop he bought it from,
but he asked me not to name them here. How considerate!
But precisely because I'm not naming the shop,
I can write this: it's that shop in Osaka with the dashingly handsome
short-legged store manager who formed a group with female customers
like some kind of pick-up artist ring, where the female customers
not in that clique call them the "Joy Division,"
and that shop recently got dropped by a major frame brand
after helping facilitate overseas resale to China.
which is fine and all (well, it's not fine),
but he totally smashed the top tube and left fork blade
of the main bike he uses for Kansai cyclocross,
so he ended up having to race with just his other bike.
The master is currently a C1-category racer,
but he's been stuck in C2 for about 10 years
(and usually comes up just short on points),
which he joked about with a homemade sticker he forgot to remove,
and that inattention was what caused the accident.
↑Test saddles are usually gaudy colors that don't match many frames
to avoid being borrowed and not returned,
but this one happens to match the frame's blue and orange,
so I tease him saying he must have borrowed and kept it.
In reality, it's past its rental period and was being sold off,
so he actually bought it—not borrowed it.
We swapped parts from a GIANT TCX over to a Ridley X-Night SL.
The master's brake and shift levers are SRAM,
but SRAM brake hoses come in 5 types.
However, for road bikes, there are basically only 2 types
(but there is one unique exception, which I'll explain later).
In the diagram above, the very top is Double Compression,
where both sides of the hose have an olive
and a compression nut attached.
Next is Beveled Banjo,
which uses a banjo that's crimped and non-removable,
attached to the lever side.
Like all the others, on the end where the hose terminates,
an olive and compression nut are attached.
Next is Threaded Inline Crimp,
where the hose screws into the caliper side.
The next two are versions with crimped banjos on the caliper side,
differing in how the banjo and O-ring relate:
Silver Banjo and Black Banjo.
For any given lever or caliper,
only one type of hose is compatible.
However, even hoses other than Double Compression
come with two sets of small parts like olives and compression nuts,
so if you accidentally buy the wrong hose type,
you can cut off the banjo end and use it as Double Compression.
The banjo portion of the Beveled Banjo is silver,
but the difference from Silver Banjo is
that one side of the banjo has a bevel angle.
"Bevel" means a slant or angle,
and another example you might see in cycling is
Maruishi makes a bicycle with a shaft drive instead of a chain drive,
and the conical gear at the end of the driveshaft
is called a bevel gear.
In the road bike category, it's handy to remember:
mechanical shift 11S levers = Beveled Banjo,
and 12S eTap levers from then on = Double Compression.
At the very top of the diagram it says
RED AXS (2-piece), which refers to
when there used to be a single-piece caliper carved from one billet—
that older road disc brake caliper type where the caliper side
had an add-on banjo bending the oil line 90°,
while 2-piece refers to current calipers with parts split left and right
and bolted together, with the hose installed straight.
By this classification, 1-piece calipers use Beveled Banjo,
and 2-piece calipers use Double Compression,
but RED AXS (2-piece) is specifically annotated
because it relates to the unique exception I mentioned earlier.
I ordered one Beveled Banjo hose kit.
With Double Compression, by the way, we keep stock on hand
and still have inventory. The Ridley frame routes all hoses from the handlebar
through the inside of the stem to the headtube in a fully internal setup,
and in this case, since it's mechanical single-ring up front,
the rear derailleur cable also has to be internal.
Since Ridley needs longer hose lengths than GIANT,
we can't reuse the same sides,
but I did something cheap and reused
the rear brake Beveled Banjo hose on the Ridley's front brake
(this was my call, not the master's request).
So I only needed to order for the rear brake.
↑The banjo with the bevel has O-rings attached to both sides.
↑Before O-ring installation
↑After O-ring installation
This is the bracket cover removed—it's sealed with 4 Phillips-head tapping screws
(←a ridiculous spec). The image above is the left lever.
The right side is where the banjo attaches,
and the left side is the reservoir tank.
In other words, even if you're just replacing the Beveled Banjo hose,
you have to open the DOT brake fluid cap—a ridiculous design.
↑This is where the bevel actually matters.
The banjo is now installed.
Of the 5 hose types, only Beveled Banjo
has the spec where "the lever side is not the end of the hose."
What this means is that this banjo won't fit through a handlebar hole,
which limits internal frame routing to top-entry only.
You might think, "Why not just go with Double Compression
on the current 12S component?", but the master runs
all his 11S sprockets with Shimano,
and most of his rear wheel hubs can't be swapped to SRAM XDR freebodies,
making the upgrade costly outside of the component cost,
so we skipped 12S this time.
The lever and caliper are the same models as what came with the GIANT,
but the lever piston action felt spongy, so I swapped it
for a different one in near-new condition.
"Near-new condition" is my way of saying
"new old stock bought at auction,"
and if he'd already had one, that would be fine,
but if we're buying a lever and caliper set just for this build,
wouldn't it have made sense to go 12S?
→But then we'd be back to the "need new wheels" conversation.
Shape the diaphragm to match the cover's underside
and install the diaphragm.
Getting this rubber diaphragm piece
to stay straight against the bracket while tightening down
the cover's 4 screws is pretty annoying.
At this stage, it's better to thread the hose end
through the bracket cover beforehand.
You can technically slip it on from the outside (brake lever side),
but it's a real pain.
The right front lever hose is reused from the former left rear,
as I mentioned earlier.
The master said he had "spare hoses too"
and brought some he'd bought before,
but those were Black Banjos,
so they didn't work.
This banjo is on the caliper side, not the lever side,
and unlike Beveled Banjo, it has no bevel
and the O-ring is single-sided, not both sides,
so it's completely incompatible.
This is the "unique exception" I mentioned:
Mechanical 11S lever / 1-piece caliper = Beveled Banjo
and eTap 12S lever / 2-piece caliper = Double Compression,
but the very first RED eTap 12S levers
required Black Banjo with 1-piece calipers.
↑From SRAM's official video
This shows the 1-piece era RED caliper with a Black Banjo attached.
↑This is from SRAM's official documentation
showing the Beveled Banjo parts list.
Unconfirmed, but for the RED 1-piece caliper,
the black banjo in the top row, second from the right
that installs with a compression nut might work.
If so, there's a possibility of using
RIVAL22 lever with RED 1-piece caliper.
However, since Black Banjo
has the lever side as the hose end
and there's no "banjo with a bevel attached as an add-on
rather than original crimping,"
hose kits other than Beveled Banjo won't work
with levers designed for Beveled Banjo.
If what the master brought had been Beveled Banjo,
I would have assembled the components on January 2nd
and made the January 5th Kansai Cyclocross at Kibou no Oka,
but since it wasn't, I had to have the distributor
ship it out on the 6th (their first business day),
and assembled it on the 7th when it arrived.
When buying this Black Banjo hose kit,
the master didn't just grab it and head to the register—
he actually asked the shop staff if it was compatible
and got them to say yes before buying.
So I said, "Then why don't you ask for a refund?",
but he said he didn't have the receipt
and bought it ages ago
(the packaging does look old)
so he decided to let it go.
The official description just says "Compatible with RED eTAP HRD"
without emphasis like "RED eTAP HRD (ONLY!)".
In defense of this, many small parts listed as "compatible with Dura-Ace"
also work with Ultegra or 105 from the same generation.
Brake pads and shoes are identical,
and while rotors and chains are different parts, they're compatible.
So saying "compatible with RED" might reasonably be interpreted
to include FORCE and below components too.
But this price tag is poorly written.
It reads like SRAM works with everything.
The current MSRP on this is ¥6,780 tax included,
so it's definitely something old.
so I could ask to take this off his hands for personal use.
Hey master, you watching?
I'd take it at the price on the tag.
I asked the master which shop he bought it from,
but he asked me not to name them here. How considerate!
But precisely because I'm not naming the shop,
I can write this: it's that shop in Osaka with the dashingly handsome
short-legged store manager who formed a group with female customers
like some kind of pick-up artist ring, where the female customers
not in that clique call them the "Joy Division,"
and that shop recently got dropped by a major frame brand
after helping facilitate overseas resale to China.