Another small hands situation...

[MartianDestiny]

Hey,

I hopefully won't stoke the fire too much with this one, but reading things in various posts about brakes and reach and handlebars... if I am having problems getting a good squeeze on the brakes from the hoods, how would changing the handlebars help?? I can see how it helps if my problem is from the drops... but it's not, it's a hoods only issue... my hand is on the hood which is part of the lever... not part of the handlebar... so I'm perplexed!

Moving to short reach handlebars means there is less total reach from saddle to hoods. When you are struggling to reach the hoods well or can't quite get your fingers wrapped around that extra few millimeters to allow you to rotate out/down some really can help. A shorter stem may have the same effect but short reach bars are a less drastic change.

Or maybe I'm wrong?

[kenyonchris]

Moving to short reach handlebars means there is less total reach from saddle to hoods. When you are struggling to reach the hoods well or can't quite get your fingers wrapped around that extra few millimeters to allow you to rotate out/down some really can help. A shorter stem may have the same effect but short reach bars are a less drastic change.

Or maybe I'm wrong?

This helped me a lot. My bike is a tiny bit large (as opposed to a lot small going one size down) so women's bars shortened the reach quite a bit.
Shortening the stem made my bike a bit too twitchy for me.

[lunacycles]

I think she is saying that the reach to the hoods isn't the problem. It is reaching the actual brake lever with her fingers when her hands are on the hoods that is the problem.

BTW, SRAM brifters are adjustable reach. It doesn't mean they are set up that way, but if you do get them, make sure whoever installs them sets the reach on the smallest possible setting . This will effectively bring the brake lever part of the brifter closer to the bar and should make it easier for you to reach with your fingers. It's not a shim, either, which imo is a better solution than the Shimano/Specialized shim.