My daughter did her first CX race today, and loved it, but she is being held back by her inability to change gear without stopping.

Her thumbs just arent strong enough to operate the shifter on the move.

She has a Frog 52 with 8 speed Acera SL M360 rapidfire shifters, 1x,

Can anyone recommend some shifters that she’ll get on with please?

Thanks

Miles

What about a friction stem shifter

My old 9 speed xtr was/is the lightest shifting action that I’ve come across.

I’m not sure if a fresh (higher spec) chain and cassette would help but some new shimano SP41 outer and a new inner would likely be a low cost thing to try out.

My seven year old has a cobbled together 18speed Trek with an old school sis thumbshifter for the cassette. Seems to work fine.

+1 for trying new SP41 cable (with slick inners,SP4 sealed end caps, and full length outers if possible).From memory, 8sp Acera isn’t particularly heavy to operate, so i’d suspect cable issues as a starting point.

Di2. Saw 10 speed on a kids cross bike last year.

Otherwise tourney TX50 for seven speed. I used this on my niece’s bike for the same reason.

Gripshift. Much derided over the years but the ones we’ve had over the years on Islabikes have all been fine and both have been able to use them fine. Maybe just getting it into the biggest cog can be an issue sometimes. Keep them clean.

Otherwise Di2…

I had the same issue when my daughter started cx at 7, she had a frog too! We swapped it for a Scatto from kids racing.co.uk which has microshift 1×11. She has no issues with this setup.

High quality grip shift – like the sram rocket ones I have. Not the cheap crap you get on cheap bikes. Much easier than triggers IMO and as others have said – good quality cables with nice runs without tight turns

Thanks for the replies.

She did come back asking for ‘some clippy in pedals and shoes like yours’ as others in the (under 8s) race had them!

I dropped the cables to lube them this morning and without tension they are hard to action, so am sure that they shifter is the place to start.

On some of our previous bikes with a sram X4 mech I’ve stretched the spring in the mech a little – which takes some of the weight of the shifter.

that along with very good cables certainly helped

My 6 year old struggled with a thumbshifter so I got him a Gripshift. This had even stiffer shifting So I got a Shimano grip shifter, Tourney I think. He’s been fine with this ever since 😁

Shimano revoshift has a light action as good as high end gripshift. It lasted 6 years fitted to the 20″ Hardrock that 3 of my kids used from the age of 6-9.

Is it a cassette or freewheel?

M7000 shifter and mech are claimed to be 30% (or something) lighter action EACH than M8000.
HOWEVER … all that aside the biggest change is a new FULL LENGTH good quality cable and outer…and make sure routing is optimised as kids bikes being smaller tend to have more acute bends.

Long story but despite trying EVERYTHING else… (including swapping mech/shifters with my own) and the cable feeling fine when not under load someone persuaded me to try.

It was like a magic wand… drilled out the lugs after to make it neater than just cable ties.

Good shifters and cables make a huge difference to kids as their thumbs are nowhere near as strong as an adults’. My son struggled to use the Deore shifters on his XS Rockhopper, but to me they were fine… but his enjoyment of the bike was transformed when I upgraded to XT shifters and better cables. The XT shifters were noticeably lighter to use – so much so I upgraded my bike as well!

Gripshift. Much derided over the years but the ones we’ve had over the years on Islabikes have all been fine and both have been able to use them fine. Maybe just getting it into the biggest cog can be an issue sometimes. Keep them clean.

^^This^^

Mine both seem to get on much better with a twister than a flicker…
But it’s worth noting that SRAM’s “exact actuation” 1:1 stuff is a noticeably lighter action that their older Shimano compatible 2:1 shifters.
We’ve got both on a couple of bikes and SRAM X3 would be my choice for any kids bike now, it’s pretty cheap stuff so when they drop the bike you won’t wince as much, you can get a decent range cassette in 8 speed, and should they decide they want triggers at a later date it’s only ~£10-£15ish to change it…

And yeah SP41 outers, decent stainless inners can help a bit…