Shimano BL-1055 Aero Hood Covers (Road)

I don’t know if this will come in handy for anyone but if you have a vintage bike with dura- ace BL-7400 brake levers and you don’t want to pay two bills for vintage brake hoods, you CAN buy these and clip the tops off so your brake cables can go through. It’s not a perfect fit, but it’s comfy and way better than my old crumbling set.

These are nice hoods, and best of all fit on the vintage Shimano 600 levers on my Trek without too much fuss. They looked very similar, and the levers that are listed to fit are very close to my 600's. I was willing to take a chance versus hunting down new-old-stock hoods on the internet and paying $50 for a 25 year old piece of rubber. A few drops of light oil on a few areas helped these slide over my levers easily. There is some void space in the top forward pointy corner (sorry I don't know that particular jargon) of the hoods when installed on my bike but the fit is still decent. I've seen brake hoods exclusive to certain brake levers that fit worse. For $8, these Shimano hoods look and feel good on my bike, and were a huge improvement over the old, deteriorating (and possibly original) hoods on my bike.

I had a hard time finding brake hoods that are compatible with my original Shimano 105 brake levers, model BL-1051. These classics are old but good, but being old, there isn't a lot of information about compatible replacement brake hoods. I decided to try these hoods, having read a comment somewhere on the internet that the BL-1055 hoods will work on BL-1051 levers.I'm happy to report that on my bike, the BL-1055 hoods do indeed work acceptably with the BL-1051 levers. I uploaded two photos in the customer images gallery so you can have a look. While they don't fit perfectly (compared to the original hoods), they are close enough. As you can see from the images, the fit around the top part of the lever is not perfectly flush, but it's good enough. Plus, the hoods are a bit too "tall" for the pointy top of the lever, so you can push the top down a bit. But those light imperfections don't affect the grip or the ride. When you're riding, where you actually put your hands, the hoods do fit snugly, they are stable and don't twist around. In other words, they do what they do and they work fine.I hope this bit of information is helpful to the handful of us still using these quarter-century old brakes.

I had a tough time selecting the number of stars for this review as I didn't want to create a bias based my own issue. These brake lever hoods seem to be good quality so I gave them four stars. Unfortunately, they did not really fit the Shimano BL-Z306 brake levers on my 1985 Miyata 310 (my own fault). I wasn't really sure if they would fit my levers when I ordered them but the shape was similar enough that I thought I'd give them a try because of the positive reviews.I ended up making them fit with a few simple modifications. They're not a terrible fit and they seem comfortable enough but they don't fit like a glove either. I would recommend these for the BL-Z306 levers if you can't find anything else but I'm thinking the Dia-Compe Non-Aero hoods might be a better choice (I haven't tried them myself).If you know of better hoods for the Shimano BL-Z306 brake levers please post a comment here so we know where to look. Thanks.

If you have a vintage set of Shimano RX100 (first 2 pictures) or SLR 105 (last 4 pictures) brake levers, these are a perfect fit. Shimano logo and right or left designation for an easy install. Put in sunlight for a couple hours and 1 or 2 drops of water will make them slide in super easy. No need to remove levers from bars, see last 4 pictures for step by step install.

I bought these hoods to replace the old, dirty, torn ones on my Exage levers. As another reviewer said, they do fit. I don't use the Exage lever extensions, but you could if you trimmed down the hoods around the hole in the lever body. These are good quality, they are just stretchy enough to put on the levers from the front without tearing the rubber. I couldn't be happier. Just remember, there is a right and a left side, so don't put the wrong one on the wrong side when you mount them! I think this source is the only one remaining on the internet for these hoods. Who knows where we will get them once they're gone from here!

I read into these, and they were intended to fit my bike's specs. I would say the fit was maybe 80%. Both Left and Right sides have some of the rubber sticking up off the front. It will work, but it's not quite right.

I used these to restore an old 1989 Cannondale RS400, the hoods were very moldy and grimey. Just took off the old hoods and replaced them with these. Used this video to help me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ty0Q9sof0ewJust like the poster before me has said, these hoods work well for the BL-1051 brake levers, even though they are designed for the BL-1055.I do not notice much difference at all between these and the originals.The poster before me said they don't fit very well at the top of the levers, but I have noticed that when you pull the sides a little tighter, the top actually fits quite nicely. Like I said, almost identical to the originals. So recommended!PROS:- Cheap (way cheaper than buying 'vintage' hoods on Ebay)- Good quality by Shimano- Quite easy to install- Fits for both BL-1055 and BL-1051CONS:- None so far!