[martl]

Originally Posted by Mark McM

On the Campagnolo disc brakes (including Ekar), the banjo is inside the brake lever, and the olive and barb are at the caliper. If the hose is in good shape, there's no reason that a rear hose couldn't be used on the front, with a new olive and barb.

Hydraulically, there's no reason not to put the banjo in the lever, but it does create a pain-in-the-butt when the hose is routed internal to both the frame and the handlebar. Normally, internally routed brake house is run into the frame by the caliper mounts and then out through the head tube. then when the handlebar is fitted, the hoses are run into the handlebar and out by the levers. But the non-removeable banjo on Campagnolo hoses won't fit through the routing holes on most handlebars, or the routing holes by the calipers. So the hoses have to first be routed through the handlebar, and then into the head tube out out of the frame/fork by the calipers - backwards of they way the frame designers originally intended. The pain is that the hoses are must be run through the frame while the handlebar is dangling by the hoses, and likely the electric shift wires also have to run while the handlebar is dangling by the hoses/wires. And if you are using mechanic shifting, now you've got a pair of cables & housings dangling between the frame and handlebar before you can finally install the stem and handlebars to the steerer. Doable, but a real pain.

True. I did it on a fully internal routed bike and it was a major pain. Especially since Ekar is mechanical shifting. One would need about six hands really to juggle a frame that wants to tip, a fork and bearing rings that want to drop out, the stem, the bar, the upper bearing cup and two pieces of spacer with very stubborn hoses going through them, while threading the front brake hose through that needle hole in the fork shaft etc etc...

instead of building from the frame up, you build from the handlebar and stem, took me a bit to wrap my head around that
also, it is of essence to cut the steering tube *before* inserting the cables, other than shown in the pic below- or you do it twice. (This is when i messed up the original hose and had to look for a new one). Something i hate to do because of handlebar height, i like to confirm the height on the assembled bike before cuttng.
If i had to do it again, i'd go for a semi integrated frameset.