Another small hands situation...

[kenyonchris]

I had 105 on my last bicycle and the shifters were quite large. Although I could brake in the drops, it hadn't even occurred to me that I might be able to brake in the hoods since it was so inconceivable based on the size of the shifters versus my hands. Basically, I did not realize how unsafe it was until I switched over to Campy, whose shifters are much smaller and fit my hands very well!

I am 5'3.5" with short arms/small hands and your situation seems quite normal to me from my experience

Ditto on this...I am small with small hands, plus I have broken both hands and all my fingers at least once (my left hand has fared worse, the ring finger on that one has been broken three times). I have ridden Shimano 105, Tiagra, Ultegra, Dura Ace, and now am riding Campy Chorus. The Campy Chorus is by far the easiest for braking and shifting, particularly on the left side.

Also, I played a lot with my handlebars. I now have Specialized WS on there, it makes a huge difference. I also, being small, insisted on 38" bars, despite EVERY bike shop eyeballing me, telling me a 40" would work, until they actually measured me and they all said, "Why you ARE small, aren't you!"

[bluebug32]

I have small hands and have shims in my dura ace shifters. This helps, as does a shallower bar, but I am still planning to swap out to SRAM Rival when I find a good deal on them. The shifters are smaller, adjustable, and rebuildable, unlike Shimano.

[Crankin]

I also, was going to suggest bars with a shallower drop and narrower bars. I spent the $ for the Shimano short reach shifters. It was worth every penny of the $300.00.
After doing all three of these things, I can, for the first time, brake in the drops and feel comfortable that I can squeeze the brakes hard .I tried the shims for at least a year and they actually made the braking feel worse.

[VeloVT]

I have R700 shifters on one of my bikes. I'm not sure how different these are than standard Shimano shifters that have been shimmed, but I do find they make a significant difference in how close the levers are to the bar. I can probably dig up pictures for comparison if you are interested (of R700 shifters on Ritchey Biomax bars vs regular unshimmed Ultegra shifters on Ritchey Biomax Bars).

Narrower bars are nice if you have narrower shoulders (as I do, in fact), but they won't help your hand problems.

The shape of the drop can make a significant difference. Rounder, more traditional drops, counter-intuitively, often have a shorter reach to the shifters than modern ergo bars have.

What everyone has said about braking technique is right on (you want to be relying more on your front brake than your rear brake), but if you are noticiing significant differences you should also check the brake adjustments. Can you actually pull your rear brake lever closer to the bar before engaging the brake? If so, you need to tighten up the rear brake.

[little_teapot]

Thanks so much everyone!! I'm actually overwhelmed with the response, I wasn't sure that anyone would care.

Great advice about the front/rear percentage of braking- I've had a bit of a look at some of those sites, and definitely need to go out on the bike and have a bit of a play. Will keep reading and researching, but a friend goes to a skills class on weekends, and I'm planning ongoing along with her this saturday. Will ask the coach/head dude about braking techniques and to check my hand position and see how much of it might be just technique related.... I've got to say on my flat bar roady I definitely used the back brakes way more than the front- seems like its time to make a few changes!

Perhaps if things still aren't quite right after some skill development I'll suss out some test rides on either Ultegra shifters or the SRAM ones if I can find them... as for the Campy comments- that is what I have heard and read- just seems that SRAM might be a bit of a more budget friendly alternative (I haven't dared ask for the campy quote- but am assured by the bike shop that it is significantly more expensive).

I might look into the double shimming thing too... the bike shop guy didn't think we could achieve much more with shims. I am interested though- can anyone actually tell me if there is a difference between regular 105 (or other) shifters that are shimmed and the R700 shifters- it's really unclear to me if these are basically the same thing, or if the R700s are a bit smaller.

Anyhow, will continue on- thanks again for the lovely support!

[tzvia]

I'm 5'1.5, with short fingers, and ride a Specialized Ruby size 44cm. It came originally with 105's that I upgraded to Ultegra SL (along with a replacement frame ) after a crash really messed them up. The Ultegras don't really feel much different, and they have the shims in them that Specialized uses, probably the same as what you have in your levers. It's that bulbous shifter mechanism that makes it harder for me to get my fingers around the lever when on the hoods, and I don't think that the shims help much there, they only really help in the drops.

You may want to get the more powerful hand on the rear brake. Not that it would stop you better, but it might help prevent panic endos occurring from locking the front wheel with the more powerful hand. If your left hand is weak and you feel it would be unsafe on the front brake, as it is the 'stopper', you might want to keep it on the back brake and do some strength hand exercises (like a squeeze ball). I am lucky to have good hand strength in both hands despite carpal tunnel, so run with the right on the rear brake.

If I have to brake suddenly on the hoods, I try to shift my weight down and back, knowing that i might go over the bars if I lock the front and allow my weight to shift forward. I also know that with the longer cable run to the rear brake, and the extra brake housing, along with the weight shift forward with deceleration, that the front is doing most of the work.

The other replies here have a lot of good information. I would also add that when I switched to a better brake than the Tectros that came on the Ruby (I put my old Dura Ace on but you don't have to go that pricey to get a better brake) braking force increased and braking effort improved and eased a great deal.

[aicabsolut]

I think many of you are missing something...
She says that she needs to move the lever a lot farther in order to get much braking power. Granted, you get less braking power with the rear brake, but I don't think that's the issue. To me, this says that the cable is too loose so that she's having to pull the lever far towards the drops for her liking before the pads are gripping the rim. Looseness of the brakes is personal preference, though I can see that having tighter brakes with short fingers could be useful (I like my brakes loose, but I do not have small hands).

Turn the barrel adjuster at the rear caliper counterclockwise to tighten the cable and bring the pads closer to the rim. It will now make contact with the rim with less modulation of the lever.