What's the "trick" to short levers? I'm used to pulling the stock lever all the way to the grips. Using one or two fingers you'll hit your other fingers on the grip if you go all the way down. Right now I've got it pushed out far enough so you only need to pull it about half way before the clutch is fully engaged. Is that how most people are using them?

 

If you ride with well secured gloves on its going to be hard. I own a pair of alpinestars sp2 more like a fat glove so in such cases you cant clutch all the way in. And hope you got some free play on that clutch?

 

Yeah, got a bit of free play. A few mm's I'd guess. Been playing around with adjusting it. Moved the perch more inside on the bar. This helped the lever to clear my pinky at least.

 

Yes, that's exactly what is supposed to happen.

On a road bike on the road it's no biggie to let go of the handlebar grip in order to wrap your fingers around the clutch or brake lever. After all, you still have your palm on the bar and your thumb under it, so pretty secure, right?

However OFF road, where bumps and lumps can hit you from all directions and unexpectedly, it's all too easy to find your hand wrenched off the bars completely.

You can either try to grip onto the bars with The Thumb Claw of Death (tm) or you can just hold on with your pinky, ring finger AND your thumb, in a much more relaxed, comfortable, safe and less-tiring manner.

That only leaves 2 fingers available to feather the clutch across bumpy bits and up hills but that should be plenty, and is way better than none because your hand came off the bars...

Same with the front brake. Any half-decent disk brake should be more than capable of a full stoppie with 2 fingers.

Some say you should always ride with 2 fingers on the front brake. I've tried that, never managed to feel natural. But just using 2 fingers when you do? Yeah, that doesn't take long to get used to.