Making a shifter easier for my daughter to use?

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Hebe

getting better all the time
Location
wiltshire
I’m wondering if a tweak might be possible. There’s nothing wrong mechanically, she just has small hands. It’s the lower left shifter to take her between 1 and 2 at the front. She struggles to push it far enough with her thumb to move the chain fully across. She’s fine going from 2 to 1 if I’ve left the bike in 2, and she’s fine with the 1-8 on the other side because there seems to be a lot less travel between each one. It’s a Liv hybrid, her first grown-up bike with shifters on both sides of the handlebar. The problem should go away as her hands get bigger and stronger, but it’s a shame that she’s not using the full range of gears.

AEE964BC-DE0F-44EB-A781-69811DB72415.jpeg


It’s Shimano Altus 2x8. I’ve looked at the Sureshift silicon extenders, but they are only suitable for the right hand shifters. I could try adjusting where they are by rotating slightly and seeing if that helps. I would be very grateful for ideas if anyone else has had a similar problem. Thank you and Happy New Year.
 
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Retyred.life

Über Member
Try rotating the whole shifter mechanism so it sits above the bars. That way you can use more digits than just the thumb. Possibly even the whole hand.
 
OP
OP
Hebe

Hebe

getting better all the time
Location
wiltshire
Try rotating the whole shifter mechanism so it sits above the bars. That way you can use more digits than just the thumb. Possibly even the whole hand.
Thank you, I’ll try that and see how we get on. I’ll report back and let you know.
 
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Hebe

Hebe

getting better all the time
Location
wiltshire
Thank you for your replies.

Is the issue how much force she needs to apply with her thumb or just that the throw is too far under the grip for her thumb to extend?
that’s a really interesting very good question and I am not sure of the answer. Possibly a bit of both. She worries about ”getting about it wrong” and has built it up in her head into something that she can’t do.

From the photo it looks like the hsifter and rbake lever need rotating round to give her easier access to the shift lever
I’m going to try this. It would be nice if it was this easily fixed ^_^
 

ColinJ

Puzzle game procrastinator!
It would be nice if she could use all of the gears, but... does she actually need to?

I would have thought that she could do an awful lot of riding in the smaller ring at the front. I have a triple on my best bike and probably spend 75% of my time on the middle ring. If I never went above 20 mph I would never need to use the big ring.
 
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Hebe

Hebe

getting better all the time
Location
wiltshire
It would be nice if she could use all of the gears, but... does she actually need to?

I would have thought that she could do an awful lot of riding in the smaller ring at the front. I have a triple on my best bike and probably spend 75% of my time on the middle ring. If I never went above 20 mph I would never need to use the big ring.
That’s another interesting question, thank you. She’s not really missing the extra gears, indeed as far as she‘s concerned even using just one ring at front she’s still got more gears at the back than she had on her Frog. She’s stronger than me on uphills and is good at using her legs more when hills get steeper. Thinking about it, I don’t use the big ring on my triple anywhere near as often as I could.
 

ColinJ

Puzzle game procrastinator!
That’s another interesting question, thank you. She’s not really missing the extra gears, indeed as far as she‘s concerned even using just one ring at front she’s still got more gears at the back than she had on her Frog. She’s stronger than me on uphills and is good at using her legs more when hills get steeper. Thinking about it, I don’t use the big ring on my triple anywhere near as often as I could.
I have recently bought a 1x11 bike and I like riding that. Admittedly, the ring is a bit bigger then her smaller ring will be, but it is quite nice not having to think about changing at the front.
 
Goes to show its still a man’s world. Credit to Giant for introducing the “Liv” series for women. For the first time a woman can walk into a bike store and pick up up quality bike with shifters for smaller hands.
 
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OP
Hebe

Hebe

getting better all the time
Location
wiltshire
I have recently bought a 1x11 bike and I like riding that. Admittedly, the ring is a bit bigger then her smaller ring will be, but it is quite nice not having to think about changing at the front.
She likes the 1x7 gearing on my Mixte very much, but the rest of the bike is still a little big for her. I can see her borrowing it in a year or two.
Goes to show its still a man’s world. Credit to Giant for introducing the “Liv” series for women. For the first time a woman can walk into a bike store and pick up up quality bike with shifters for smaller hands.
It’s funny, because her bike is a Liv ^_^ which probably explains how the rest of it fits her so well. She’s still got child sized hands though, she turns 14 in a few weeks. She’s learning bass guitar so hopefully a stronger grip is in her future as well as fully grown hands.

Thanks for the replies, I’ll have a look at rotating the shifter today.
 

figbat

Slippery scientist
Would a grip shifter help? Conventional wisdom states that trigger shifters are easier than twist-grips but maybe this time the opposite would be true? I have a boxful of grip shifters from where I have replaced them on all on my kids’ bikes but they’re all 3x on the left side, otherwise you’d be welcome to one to try.
 

ColinJ

Puzzle game procrastinator!
She’s learning bass guitar so hopefully a stronger grip is in her future as well as fully grown hands.
Funnily enough, I got a bass for Christmas. I have left it a bit late to learn (I am only weeks away from my state pension!), so I'd better get stuck in while I still can.

Is her bass a short scale one? I hadn't realised until recently that they were available. Mine is 7/8 of full size.

Would a grip shifter help? Conventional wisdom states that trigger shifters are easier than twist-grips but maybe this time the opposite would be true?
I had grip shift on a mountain bike about 30 years ago. I found it okay at the start of the ride but once I got tired I struggled with the front shifter. I imagine that a teenage girl would struggle even more.

It might be that the mechanism on your shifters is easier than mine was though.
 
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