Originally Posted by Duragrouch

Bought it new, force has been massive from day one. Pulled muscle in left hand trying to upshift with gripshift. Checked force with FD off bike, moving linkage by hand, even unhooked the spring to make sure not internal friction, nope, the spring is just way too stiff. Originally had a microshift combo brake levers and trigger shifters, but high force shredded the left after a year. Bought a $5 nice used Shimano Alivio trigger at Recycled and it has been bombproof, I just need to push with my right thumb, straight in line with force.

My goal is to mount a Shimano FD-5800 "long arm" (special pull ratio), more leverage, plus a relatively soft spring, that was for an 11 speed road I think, and use a gripshift going directly from 1 to 3 for an actual 1-2 shift on the 2X crank, trade more displacement for less force. I have the FD, manipulates very easily in my hands, but it won't mount flat to the Litepro FD adapter (40mm seat tube, no one makes a band-clamp FD that big), the (stronger) Shimano double-shear linkage protrudes more forward than the (theoretically weaker) single-shear linkage on the Microshift, but which mounts fine.

Or, if I can somehow swap the spring to a softer one on the Microshift. If I had access to a machine shop, I could destructively remove the old shaft that holds the spring, make a new one with hollow-drilled ends, and re-rivet it back together.

I'm just happy the Alivio shifter works (a couple years now), despite needing to use my right thumb.