For the first time in 20 years of biking, I now have some rear-sets (CNC Racing - very nice!) where the gear lever is of the folding variety. What is the best direction to allow the lever to fold? Upwards, downwards, backwards or forwards? The diagrams that came with the rear-sets show it mounted to allow the lever to fold downwards, but this intuitively feels wrong, since the pressure on the lever when changing is either up or down. So if you have a folding gear lever on your bike, which way does it fold?
Agreed, folds backwards as normally the direction of travel when crashing is likely to be forward (!). A low side might see the bike spinning in the opposite direction and sliding backwards for example, in which case then the gearlever will lock and probably wear away if it starts to hit the ground, in which case it's sometimes better if the tip of the lever breaks off to avoid further damage to the rest of the bike or the remains of the lever.
