TL;DR… How do I make my young daughter’s AdventX (MTB) easier to down shift for her little hands? Also, can I use an Advent or Acolyte shifter so she can see what gear she is in?
Long version…. My Daughter is nearly 8 but tall for her age so I recently bought her a [Forth 24 X2](https://forthbikes.com/product/24-x2/). It has a full AdventX drivetrain which seems to be great quality. BUT her hands have a hard time down shifting. Everything is lubed and properly adjust per the owners manual (“B screw” was way off to start with, this correction may have helped a small amount).
How do I make it easier for her to downshift?
Ideas I have had…
1. Stretch out the derailleur spring to reduce tension.
2. (Edit: I now understand this is not an option) Switch to a different trigger for [Advent](https://www.microshift.com/models/sl-m6295-r/) or Acolyte (seems to be compatible but we’d lose a gear, no biggie). They specifically list as easy to shift but maybe that’s because of the derailleur not the shifter.
3. Switch to an Advent 9 speed derailleur or the [AdventX
Version 2 derailleur](https://www.microshift.com/models/rd-m6205am-b/). Both say easy/easier shifting.
Does anybody else out there have experience with small hands and the AdventX?
I am highly considering the Advent Quick Trigger Pro Shifter with indicator because this would also let her see which gear ramge she is in. She sometimes struggles with this. (Edit: I now understand this isn’t an option)
Thanks for any and all help!
by FightFireJay
2 Comments
>switch to an advent or acolyte shifter
no can do, at least not without changing out other parts of the drivetrain at the same time. You wouldn’t “lose a gear or two”, the index points on the 9-speed or 8-speed shifter would not be aligned with the spacing between the gears on your 10-speed cassette.
The shifter needs to pull the correct amount of cable to line up the derailleur with the correct cable-pull-to-lateral-motion ratio over the correctly-spaced cogs. 8-speed and 9-speed microshift shifters do not pull the same amount of cable per shift as their 10-speed shifters because 8-speed and 9-speed cassettes have the cogs spaced differently than 10-speed cassettes.
EDIT: or to explain a different way: 8/9/10-speed cassettes are all about the same width, the cogs are just crammed tighter together when there are more of them. If you swapped to an 8-speed Acolyte shifter, you wouldn’t be shifting across eight of the cogs and just locked out of the remaining two at one end of the cassette or the other. Instead, the derailleur would still move approximately across the entire cassette… when the shifter is in gear 1, you’d be in gear 1. When the shifter is in gear 8, you’d be in gear 10. In the middle of the cassette, it would be a mess with the derailleur clunking around misaligned between gears.
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