A friend of mine, due to a childhood disease, has one arm around 8 incles shorter than the other.

The shorter arm has no working elbow in it so can only bend at the shoulder and he can’t turn his hand palm upwards, only about 90 degrees. The short arm also has no bicep muscle. His grip strength is amazing on that hand though! The other arm is normal.

I asked him if he minded me putting this pic up and he said it was ok:

He wants to get a bike for about £200-300 max and I was thinking of a standard fully rigid bike. He wants to take it off-road eventally but I thought that later on if he gets on ok with a bike then he can get some decent suspension forks for the bike he already has as his current budget isn’t enough.

He has a motorbike and can ride that ok but having normal bars means he has to sit twisted which makes his back hurt a lot within a short distance so its not a great idea.

My first thought was some On-one Mary bars (can you help Brant – would this work?), with the grips at different distances along the bars so the RH one is nearer the end and effectively closer to him.

Anyone else any ideas?

Chuffin’ pic is wrong way round – sorry!

just a thought but what about some custom bent bars?? would it be possible to have some made that would fit?
edit..probably wouldn’t be that cheap tho…

Could you use normal bars and mount the stem wonky, so one end was nearer the seat on his ‘shorter’ side? You’d have to use a shorter than usual stem to offset the other end being further away…

If he has no working elbow then any unexpected forces from the handlebars are going to be sent straight up his arm into his collarbone, surely? That doesn’t sound a good idea.

Rachel

FMX flip lever with some modifications perhaps? Guessing his shoulder wont like the forces going straight into them though

Having the stem wonky would put the angle of the bar in such a way that the LHS (in this case) would be at a completely wrong angle – probably pointing away from the rider|

If he has no working elbow then any unexpected forces from the handlebars are going to be sent straight up his arm into his collarbone, surely? That doesn’t sound a good idea.

He can ride a motorbike ok (pain only comes from having a twisted seat position so compensate for his arms) so I assuming a bike on gentle trails would be fine, and with suspension forks later probably ok on slightly rougher stuff.

My guess would be the Mary suggestion would not give much difference.

Hopefully there will be people with experience that can help – have you googled?

Go and ask on Cycle Chat – there’s a bloke on there who specialises in adapting bikes for disabilities.

I was wondering if a set of Woodchipper bars might work – one hand on the dropped section, one on the flat. Might need some tweaking of the angle in the stem too. Other than that, a custom-bent bar looks the obvious option (likely to be heavy). If going for a rigid bike, consider the highest volume tyre you can fit in the forks to give some shock absorption.

I admire his bloody-mindedness/detemination in riding a motorbike regardless of the arm, fair play to him.

You’re ‘avin’ a LARF!

8″ shorter on one side is quite significant, particularly as he will need to keep his back straight for comfort and control. How about a two stem system with half a bar on each? Set up the longer side as per an able bodied rider then cut the bars beside the clamp. Mount a second high rise stem above the regular one at whatever angle suits (even rearwards) and fit half a butterfly bar, inverted road bar, or whatever shape suits him, to the upper stem. The combination of high rise stem and curvy bar would be very adjustable and move the shorter side bar upwards and rearwards by several inches. All this needs is a long enough steerer tube or an extender to take two stems at once.

Robdob, I have a Mary bar sitting in the shed doing nothing. More than happy to post for a trial if you want?

Mail in profile

CTC are good with type of thing. speak to your local officer.

buy a pipe bender and some bar width pipe and play around?

What about something like this? If this went on a bike/stem set up for a flat bar, the long arm could have a grip and brake on the flat next to the stem, and the short arm could have a grip/brake further back and higher up.

downshep’s suggestion of two stacked stems seems best to me to get a proper fit without any particularly exotic kit.

May be a bit left field but what about having two stems one above the other on the stearer with one facing forward and one backward. You could then use just over half a handle bar in each stem. You could also vary the stem lengths etc and spacer until everything was comfortable.

Won’t some Chopper bars work?

Years ago, I saw someone with a similar issue who used a pair of L-bend bar ends to provide the different reach requirement on the right hand side. They also used a standard 3x rapid-fire shifter and a 7/8x grip shift both fitted to the left hand side of the bars to allow gears to be controlled by one hand.

Thanks very much – very helpful suggestions there.

TimP – will send you an email, thanks.

TedC – good idea – might need to use that.

Budget is definately an issue – I need to balance the need for the bike to work properly against the money available and the fact that I want it eventually to work well as a bike for use off-road eventually – it needs to work well, not just adequately.

Fella I used to see on my commute had short arms due to what I assumed was thalidomide. He uses the L-bend bar ends at a rather jaunty angle like TedC suggested. I got chatting to him a few times and his commute was nearly 20 miles each way so it must have been a decent solution for him.

What about a wheel spinner knob for the shorter arm since the elbow doesn’t work? That would mean no brake or shifter on that side, though.

If I were that bloke I’d aim to ride mainly with one arm, and normal bars, but have an extra bar bolted into the right place for support from the short arm when it’s not ‘technical’.

Possibly a steering damper would help.

Sheldon brown built this wonderful contraption with double bars.

http://sheldonbrown.com/org/thorn/index.html

The double stem thing could work and could be relatively simple to implement if ugly.

The other options might be some of the bar extensions on planet X

http://www.planetx.co.uk/i/q/HBCISPINL/cinelli-spinaci-light-bar-extensions

http://www.planetx.co.uk/i/q/HBSPEUROB/cinelli-spinaci-euro-bar-extension.

<edit- went to delete but already deleted>

Do you know if he’s ever spoken to the NABD? It’s for motorbikes, though obviously could be useful for him there, but a lot of their ideas work for pushbikes too (they’ve helped people with amputations etc so he should be ahead of the game)

Incidentally, sticking with the motorbike theme, if he rides ones with clipons there’s a lot of variation in position available, it wouldn’t make up for the full difference in length and mobility but would certainly be better than nothing. You could fit something like an LSL tour clipon, reverse it to bring the reach shorter if there’s space around the frame and tank even. Lots of options.

I’m thinking mechanically, for mountain biking even with a perfect bar position the mobility in the arm will still be a problem? I wouldn’t want to ride a mile with a locked out elbow. Might be that one armed conversions could make more sense but then that makes brakes and shifters complicated.

useful?

Nothing much to add except what a great thread this is. 😀

I’m sure if someone comes up with a solution, there will be enough love on this site for someone to knock something up in their shed or at work whilst on one is looking 🙂

I’m sure you could run a 1×10 set up with the shifter and front break on the longer arm. Coaster break for the rear?

Has anyone mentioned brakes?! I like Downstep’s suggestion

He was about to buy a nasty bike from a pawn shop but thought to ask me first. Glad he did!

I will ask him about his motorbike too.

Limiting factor is budget I suppose. I will try to get a basic rigid bike and do some measurement with him sat on it.

The double bar setup could be cheap and would work with all the various gear shifter or brakes options. The clip on extensions and reversed bar ends wouldn’t and I’m not too keen on them anyway.

Love those modified BMX bars!

You can brakes adapted so that they run off a single lever. I can’t remember where I’ve seen it now but I do remember seeing a cable and hydraulic solution for brakes.

[edit]

Turns out they’re more freely available and cheaper than I remembered.
dual pull lever on ebay

I don’t know Ben but from his posts here I think he could hep. I’ll be back and forth between the old shop (54 Switchback Rd, Bearsden) and the new one (826 Garscube Rd, Maryhill) so best keep an eye on my Facebook (Facebook.com/KineticsGlasgow) or Twitter (@bencooper) to see where I am.

My other thought were a H bar with a short stem or a straight bar with ski bar ends one facing forward pointing in and the other pointing backwards pointing out?

I think Northwind has a point. Mobility is going to be an issue rather than reach. With regards one handed gears and brakes, lots of info on the terribly sad but possibly useful one armed cyclist thread from a while back. :'(