Cycling UK Forum

"......I agree - Gripshift is a great option and it worked very well for me too (for a while)......"

Sounds interesting. Any particular makes/models? Any suited to 3 x 7?

SteveGray wrote: ↑31 May 2023, 1:37pm Applying my school physics, a longer lever will spread the work over a longer distance and reduce the force needed to change gear, resulting in less pain I hope.

Has anyone invented a reliable lever extension ?

Initial thoughts are copper water pipe, flattened to fit closely over the existing lever.

Below you have exactly the solution you envisioned, a Sunrace thumb shifter with a short piece of an alu tube, flattened at one end, put onto the lever to make it longer, and covered with heat shrink. This has worked on my Brompton for about 3 years now. The need for a stronger than normal torque applied resulted from the complicated cable routing on the folder and the front derailleur shifting over a big gap between rings.

First a big thank you to everybody for their efforts and suggestions.

I like the last posting particularly, as I hope to keep the existing components.

Now looking for some aluminium or copper tube to try this out.

Steve Gray

djnotts wrote: ↑1 Jun 2023, 11:44pm "......I agree - Gripshift is a great option and it worked very well for me too (for a while)......"

Sounds interesting. Any particular makes/models? Any suited to 3 x 7?

I think you can still get SRAM in 3 x 7, 3 x 8 and 3 x 9. Shimano also make their 'Revoshift' twistgrip in 3 x 7. Twistgrips are usually fitted on cheaper bikes, but I found the SRAM Gripshift to be very good. I'd still prefer Rapidfire Plus, but Gripshift worked better than I expected for a 'bargain basement' system.

Back in the days of Mega9 Shimano made a rear flat bar shifter that was set up for a remote shifter. It had a cable stop screwed to the shifter body and a hole drilled in the thumb paddle to accept a gear cable
I don't know what it was for or if there is anything similar in the current lineup but it's exactly what you want as you could use a 3rd brake lever to operate the thumb trigger. Possibly something similar could be fabricated

The other thought that occurs is if you have separate shifter and brake the shifter could be swapped to the left side.
I don't know if the trigger angles etc would work but if they did the heavier paddle would be finger operated and the easy paddle thumb powered.