Changing from grip shift to trigger shifters

cyclingsheep

As the title suggests, I’d like to change the gripshifts on my daughters Isla bike. She’s really struggling to change up with the grip shifters and am thinking of changing them, has anyone done this and if so did it go smoothly?

cooldad

As long as you match the speeds they are much better as long as she doesn't have tiny fingers.

natrix

Yes, both of my children preferred thumbshifters to gripshifters so I changed them on their Islabike, but it appears to be a personal choice with some children preferring gripshifters.

steve_sordy

cyclingsheep wrote:

As the title suggests, I’d like to change the gripshifts on my daughters Isla bike. She’s really struggling to change up with the grip shifters and am thinking of changing them, has anyone done this and if so did it go smoothly?

I bought my grandkids Islabikes right from the start. The bikes with shifters all came with gripshift. My grandson was a bit more bike focused and identified problems with his shifting early on. Initially, I diagnosed that he didn't have the strength to shift to the larger gears. I made that deduction because I could shift them easily. On one of the websites I visited, it was recommended to alter the limit screws so that the gears he needed were in the middle of the range. I set the limit screws so that he could only access the gears he could shift to. That worked fine, except that he was then struggling to go up steep bits! I needed a different approach!

I took a really close look at how the gears were set up, cable tension, limit screws, lubrication, the works. I fitted a new gear cable that had a ptfe coating on it (to reduce friction), I paid very close attention to the limit screws for the larger gears. I ensured that the gears and the whole drive train was clean and free of cack. In fact I did everything that I would do for my own bike. The result was that he could shift into the larger gear with only a little bit of extra effort and just holding it there for an extra half second or so. Even when he was very young he was always an intuitive biker and he took to it straight away. He had no further problems.

I was a big fan of Islabikes (still am for young kids), but eventually I moved away from them because they were not mtb oriented at an early enough stage (more tarmac and towpath). I bought the Hoy Bonaly 24 bike from Evans. It was the same weight as the Islabike Beinn 24, £70 cheaper (at the time), had click shift, and a bigger gear range. In my opinion, it was of equal quality to the Islabikes, paint finish, quality of kit etc, all brilliant. With wider and knoblier tyres he was good to go in the woods and trail centres. His younger sister is still riding that bike and she never had a problem with shifting either. Which gear to shift into was always her problem! :roll: