Right hand disabled

Blanco77

Hi there,

I apologise if this or has been asked in the past, but given a new season, technology updates ect, I desperately need help and advice. I have secured my dream ride, a Kona Cauldera 2014, after lirerally months of choosing, research ridiculous really.

The main problem I am facing is my right hand is disabled. It can sit on the right handle bar, my thumb can shift the gears, but my fingers won’t budge.

What can I do, add modify to my kona? I want the stopping power and short reach XT Deore hydraulics but I can’t use a right brake lever at all. Please someone have some suggestions. The 2014 Kona is all spec as I understand. Thanks, for any leads thoughts or custom job contacts! Thank guys and gals,

S

02gf74

Re brake
There are at least 2 ways this has been done
1. Fit only 1 lever
2. Mount both levers on same side so can be operated by one hand
3. Adapt so that both brake callipers s are operated by one lever..

figbat

On motorbikes you can get thumb-operated brakes - is this a thing for bicycles?

shirley_basso

I would imagine that with hydro brakes you could probably get reasonable stopping power using your thumb.

Downside is that you lose the shifting ability if your brake is placed there, unless you can stretch to Di2 and do all the shifting with your left hand.

JBA

One of the users on these forums, BigMitch41, only has the use of one arm and successfully rides a mountain bike and motorbike. Have a look at his thread HERE.

There are several brake adaptations that can be made to help. Do a search on line and you will find many examples.

steve_sordy

I am assuming that you have SRAM gears as they operate very well indeed with just the thumb. Shimano in theory have thumb only, I have used them like that. But in practice Shimano are set up for the thumb push to move to larger gears and a finger pull for smaller gears.

I can give no other advice from personal experience, except that I know there is a solution out there. I met a guy at Sherwood Pines who I saw put his whole bike in the car with one hand! It was only when I went to say WOW! to him that I noticed he had no right arm at all (off at the shoulder). All his controls were on the left. He told me that he was thinking about sawing off the right side of the bar because when he did have an off that part of the bar always spun round and speared him in the gut!

What may be of use also is a damper on the steerer so that it gives your weak hand a bit more assistance to resist sudden impact turning forces. I have never seen one, but I know they exist because I have read about people using them.

By the way, RESPECT for sticking to the MTB. I have often told myself that if ever I had a bad accident that nothing would stop me from getting back on my MTB. I have been fortunate so far never to have had a life changing accident. So far I just have that slow motion car crash called ageing (bits of me just stop working, or not working so well, or as reliably....)

02gf74

Re shifting. Sram uses thumb to shift up and down.
.

Until recently shimano was thumb or finger but the recent dual shift mean finger or thumb or finger can be used so that it too can be shifted only with thumb....
..
. Worth considering di2, electronic shifter. It has 2 paddles pressed by thumb, it should be easy to push as it is not a lever to pull a cable. This would allow your right hand to shift since I'm not aware of there being rear shifter for left hand use.

steve_sordy

02GF74 wrote:

Re shifting. Sram uses thumb to shift up and down.
.

Until recently shimano was thumb or finger but the recent dual shift mean finger or thumb or finger can be used so that it too can be shifted only with thumb....
............

I have no idea whether my XT Shimano gears were dual shift or not, but the small lever could be triggered by pulling with a finger or pushing with a thumb. If that is dual shift then that is what I had. The point I was trying to make with Shimano was that using the thumb only made bar set up more difficult. The shifter body had to be rotated around the bar so that my thumb could push the small lever far enough. This wouldn't work with the i-spec mount as it affected the brake lever position more than I was comfortable with. So I had to revert to separate mountings for the shifter and brake bodies. Even then I could not get the set up spot on, but I could live with it.

Why did I bother altering a perfectly good set up? My other bike was a SRAM set up (thumb only) and once I'd got used to it, I preferred it to the Shimano finger/thumb set up. When switching from one bike to the other, there was always that momentary pause whilst I remembered which bike I was on. The pause was very brief indeed, but it was enough to miss gear shifts and/or be too late for what I needed to achieve. I could not convert the SRAM to finger/thumb, but I could convert the Shimano to thumb/thumb. It was very much better than not changing, but it was by no means perfect. After years of Shimano-only shifters, I now much prefer SRAM as I can change gear and front brake at the same time.

02gf74

Combined sram clamp allows rotation for the shifter plus sideways adjustment by selecting one of two positions. Early shimano only allows the latter. The later I spec have a curved mounting plate which implies they can be rotated around the bar.?

Have to say I get used pretty quickly when swapping between the two makes and I've never noticed missing a gear due to fumbling the lever.

Not sure which system I prefer but shimano seem to change gear with a more positive clunk whereas sram need less effort to change gears.

joebristol

A mate has an issue with his left hand - all the fingers and his thumb are smaller than they should be - so he can’t reah a normal brake lever. He’s knocked up a solution himself where he’s machined a thumb lever and attached it to a normal brake master cylinder. You need the kind of cylinder where it piston runs front to back rather than sideways though. I think he is running an old Hayes brake, but I think Magura may work in the way required. Shimano and Sram don’t.

steve_sordy

02GF74 wrote:

.............

Have to say I get used pretty quickly when swapping between the two makes and I've never noticed missing a gear due to fumbling the lever.

..........

It was my brain that was fumbling. Once I had made my mind up which bike I was on, the levers worked fine. But by that time sometimes I had missed the moment! The brain fuzz probably only lasted a fraction of a second (I'm not that old ), but it was long enough to have an impact.