Originally Posted by
Shoey
Hi everyone, I am based in Australia, having cerebral palsy I don’t have pull use of my right hand. Looking at purchasing a new x-caliber 7 mountain bike. This bike is single gear set at front. Is there anyone that can supply a shifter to use with my left hand for shifting the rear derailleur at all.. thank you in advance for help with this challenge. Thanks David
So it's standard convention that the rear shifter is on the right side. You could take the shifter that comes with the bike and mount it upside down on the left side - I'm not sure how ergonomic that will be, but that would be the easiest, least expensive thing to try first. The shifter is normally under the bar, so turning it upside down will put it on top of the bar. You could add a "handlebar extender" - basically a secondary bar section to mount stuff:
and put that under the bar where the left shifter goes and mount the shifter to that - the shifter will be upside down but under the handlebar. The bikeshop/mechanic needs to make sure the handlebar extender fits the handlebars by the left handgrip and make sure the shifter fits the extender.
Another option is get a 10 speed thumb shifter:
and mount that on the left side either upside down or backwards. Or find a clever tinkerer to modify that right thumb shifter to work properly on the left side - I bet that wouldn't be too difficult.