Need Ideas for VR Bike Braking Mechanism

Using Arduino Project Guidance
1

Hello everyone, we are building a mechanical stationary bicycle to use in a virtual reality environment. As you can see from the attached photo, we have normal brakes from a bicycle, and I'm trying to think of a way that we can simulate braking in a virtual environment. We have been using a flex resistor (setup in photo 2), and it has worked somewhat okay, but it just seems like the wrong type of technology and has been putting too much stress on the resistor. Does anyone have any ideas for an alternative? It needs to be able to allow for incremental values, not simply an on/off switch.

Thanks in advance!

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2

You could run the cable inner around a pulley attached to a rotary encoder, together with a spring, that would provide some resistance, and also return things back to their standby position when you release the brake lever.