Hand strength and shifting

[jessmarimba]

(I think I've only used my left shifter once, when I was hung over and didn't want to go up the hills to work. Maybe I should set my bike up as a 1x9...)

[dravens]

Went back to bike shop again and this time the cable and housing was replaced. This resulted in a big improvement. I was very pleased with the service this time. I still think it is a hard movement for my hand to make so I am going to work with some exercise putty to improve the strength of my left hand.

[Hi Ho Silver]

Glad the shop got it fixed for you. My experience has been that the left shifter itself got less stiff over time. At this point, mine is fairly easy to shift.

Happy riding and shifting!

[Kathi]

I'm small but not "frail" woman with small hands! My fingers aren't long enough to push the lever far enough to engage the big ring. I slide my hand to the side of the hood so my fingers have enough reach to shift to my big ring. My fingers go pretty far underneath the hood before the chain engages.

I, too, had problems with my brake levers and it was just a matter of loosening the brake cables. Makes the reach a lot easier too.

[dravens]

I contacted Specialized customer service and they emailed me:

" Sorry to hear about your shifter situation. I am not aware of any of our women’s bikes (or really any of our bikes) having excessively ‘heavy’ shifters. This is the first that I have heard of a shifter being too hard to push, unless the shifter was broken. The fact that you have tried two separate shifters and had the same experience with both can only lead me to believe that the problem is with your hand strength. Sorry… but your hand strength is the only common denominator left on this one… If there is anything I can do to be of assistance, please let me know…."

So when are women's specific design bicycles going to have a shifter and brake that belongs on a woman's bike?

The bike store fixed the shifter but it is still takes quite a bit of force to operate.

[Kiwi Stoker]

When Shimano et al design something. But you have got to remember you are using cables to move something and the front chainring movement is very large.

If all else fails regarding strengthening your hands, electronic shifting would be the way to go.

[nscrbug]

I agree with Kiwi. And like I said in my post above, I'm in the same boat as you dravens, except I'm using Shimano Ultegra shifters. I am seriously looking into the new Ultegra Di2 electronic shifting. It's due out in mid-September. Although I did test ride a bike with SRAM Force on it, and I thought it was a huge improvement over the Shimano shifting...so that is the other option I'm looking at. Either way, it's an expensive switch for sure. But I agree, that I think somebody should come out with a women's specific shifting mechanism that doesn't require a super long "throw". I also firmly believe that, at least in my particular case, the shifting is heavy due to the way the cables are routed underneath the bar tape on all of these newer bikes. My older Trek has the old style 105 shifters, where the cable exits at the inner side of the shifter, and I can shift my big ring with 1 finger...the difference is THAT huge.

[lph]

Shifting is not a question of hand strength!

A shifter that requires any sizeable amount of effort when correctly set up, tensioned and sized for the user is a badly designed shifter. Shifting is not completely effortless, but it should be nowhere near a question of having enough hand strength. That's just absurd. I'm rarely this absolute about things, but this I truely believe.

I have struggled with many shifters, but I've fixed just about all of them by taking them apart, lubing them, tweaking position and/or rerouting cables. I have big strong hands, but shortish fingers, and easy shifting has a lot to do with correct positioning and proper reach. It's a limited range you're working with, and the shifter should be designed for easy use within that range.

[Hi Ho Silver]

I agree with Kiwi. And like I said in my post above, I'm in the same boat as you dravens, except I'm using Shimano Ultegra shifters. I am seriously looking into the new Ultegra Di2 electronic shifting. It's due out in mid-September. Although I did test ride a bike with SRAM Force on it, and I thought it was a huge improvement over the Shimano shifting...so that is the other option I'm looking at. Either way, it's an expensive switch for sure. But I agree, that I think somebody should come out with a women's specific shifting mechanism that doesn't require a super long "throw". I also firmly believe that, at least in my particular case, the shifting is heavy due to the way the cables are routed underneath the bar tape on all of these newer bikes. My older Trek has the old style 105 shifters, where the cable exits at the inner side of the shifter, and I can shift my big ring with 1 finger...the difference is THAT huge.

The SRAM shifters don't have as long a "throw" as my Shimano triple does, and the response is immediate -as soon as you move shift lever, the derailleur starts moving, there is no slop or "take up".

As far as the cable routing goes, I think you've probably hit on the big problem with shifting on newer bikes. The amount of resistance caused by the extreme bends resulting from routing the cable along the bar under the tape has to be pretty high. When I replace my handlebar tape, I intend to experiment with the routing just to see if I can make it even easier to shift.

Jean