After one of the spills yesterday, the front brake lever felt different but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it at the time. After I got home and put the bike away, I noticed the glaring problem.
Must have hit a rock or something which bent the brake lever like a question mark!. I have full wrap-around handguards that were installed by the previous owner, but apparently they don’t do squat to protect the levers if they’re not aligned closely with the levers.
This will not do.
Took the brake lever off as well as the handguards, and went to work with my ludicrously overbuilt ~80 year old Starrett-Athol 324-1/2 bench vise, and some cheap HF sockets.
Lever is good as new, and the handguards on both sides now align nearly perfectly with the levers to provide much better protection.
I went through the extra work of bending the guards to fit at this angle instead of just rotating the controls on the handlebars, because the controls are canted slightly down for much more comfortable wrist angle while standing and leaning forward.
On the downside, I had to reposition my auxiliary lights, and I’m not super happy about the angle (they’re only on a single-axis pivot) or them being blocked somewhat by the turn signals, but I can figure out a solution for that later as I rarely use them anyway.
Overall, very pleased with the corrections.