kids Bike with Left Hand gear selection

apreading

We have a painter and decorater we know and have used for years whose daughter has Cerebal Palsy. She has little use of her right hand and legs that are different lengths.

He is doing some work for us at the moment and told my wife that they have been really getting into cycling and apparently she can do it but I think they need to get her a bigger bike but she cant change gears with her right hand.

Now I guess to a degree she could leave it in a relatively low gear and never change which would probably be OK.

But he said he wondered if they could get a bike where you change gears with your left hand?

Obviously this is not normal for bikes although I guess the very old style where there is a lever on the frame would allow for it - I dont think you get new bikes like that though.

Would it be possible to swap the gears over though?

This presumably wouldnt work with trigger controlled gears because they are shaped to work wiht the right hand and left hand shifters only have 3 selections.

But if you had a bike with twist grip shifters could you just swap this to the left hand side?

Any other ideas?

I dont know budget or how important it is to have gears for them as I havent spoken to him myself yet - will be seeing him tonight or tomorrow.

Would appreciate any advice I can offer him

Thanks

dombo6

You could fit a mtb trigger shifter upside down on the left. A friend of mine has that set up on his roadbike and it works fine.
Looking at my station bike, which has grip shift, you could fit the rear shifter to the left handlebar.

apreading

Thanks - one of those seems like the easiest option. I am not sure exactly her capabilities so dont know whether gripshift or triggers is better but will see what he says!

redvee

A gripshift would work on the LH side but it would turn in the opposite direction.

apreading

yeah - thats what I figured - dont see why that should be a big problem though.

cheers