Wolf Toothcomponents, Remote BarCentric

**EDIT** Wolf Tooth sent me a replacement. However, I just don't trust the design anymore. I would likely buy other Wolf Tooth products in the future, but this particular one I would avoid.1 Star. Don't buy! The screw that secures the clamp requires quite a bit of clamping torque to stay put, but there's not enough support material there to support the torque needed to keep it from slipping around the bar. Hoping they'll warranty mine but I'm not holding my breath. Look elsewhere for a better designed product, don't make my mistake.The Tranz-X Kitsuma Dropper Lever costs $40 and includes the cable. Much better deal and works better.

I purchased this to clean up my controls as I wasn't a fan of how the stock dropper lever was positioned. Overall the unit is high quality construction however it required some modifications to install. First the provided clamp screw is awful, its a stainless hex head screw but its not an off the shelf screw. The hex depth is very shallow which caused it to strip before I could even reach the torque necessary to prevent rotation. There were no instructions and since I'm using carbon bars I set the torque to 4nm. I ended up going to Home Depot and purchasing a package of 3 M3 cap head bolts for $0.67 which worked very well however the head is too large to fit the recess so I had to grind the OD down a bit. This was simply done with a drill and sandpaper. The second gripe is the unit is insanely tight fitting. Being cautions not to ruin my carbon bars I verified the fitment on Spank bars and Bontranger bars and across all three sets (1 carbon and 2 aluminum) the fitment was excessively tight to the point of scratching the paint on one set of aluminum bars. Solution was again rather simple and required a Dremel drum sander to take a little material (maybe a thou) off the inside and then I polished the inside with another polishing wheel. Very happy with the final result and I have no issues modifying things but its a little disappointing a part costing this much isn't better designed in regard to fitment and installation. If you are ok modifying things then this is a great upgrade for you but those less mechanically inclined should move on an keep looking for a different alternative.

The quality from first impression was great. Installation was easy. Unfortunately my experience wasn't great.Just after a single ride without any impact/crash, I found the cable ejected from the groove and was scratching carbon handlebar every time I press the lever. Upon inspection, I found the small retention screw (maybe it is for adjusting angle) was missing. With this high price tag for a lever, it is quite disappointing. They could have added some loctite at minimum.I saw someone complaining about the cable won't stay in the groove. I am guessing most likely he is missing the small screw as well.

I really like the look of the Wolf Tooth bar centric bar lever, and it is fairly adjustable for position, but it has a few pretty major flaws IMO. First, the hex bolt that clamps it to the handlebar is way, way too small and cheap to work well. The hex part simply strips out before it ever gets the lever tight enough on the bar that it is functional, which is more than a little irritating for a $75 lever. Second, the other adjustment screws are seriously undersized. They don't necessarily require tightening like the clamp bolt, so stripping isn't as big a deal, but why use these tiny hex bolts (and I do mean tiny)? Everything about the hex bolts is way too delicate for practical use. Lastly, there seemed to be too much friction in the lever mechanism to work correctly with the dropper post. It's possible that with some tinkering it could have been made to work, but I ended up just using the cheapo lever that came with the dropper post and it worked well from the get go. Sometimes simpler is better. The Wolf Tooth lever looks great in my parts drawer though, I'll give it that. Maybe I'll try it again if the cheap lever breaks.

This lever was an improvement over my stock KS lever. So far, I'm lovin' it. However, I did read the reviews of others prior to purchasing (yes, it's expensive!). I was careful during installation and with set-up as I could see how one could over-torque the fittings fairly easily. Note that the installation instructions indicate tightening the bar clamp to 1nm (one) torque! I also used Loctite on all the screws, especially the tiny stop screw. It fit on my Bontrager alloy, 31.8mm bar without any modifications. I'm giving 4 stars because the "light hand" needed for installation. Time will tell how well it holds up.