Weak hand strenth

[datastuff]

My son has a very weak grip in his hands and is having difficulty stopping his new bike.

His bike has disk brakes, can you suggest a solution or give a guide on how to adjust the levers to help improve the power on braking.

At the moment he is afraid to ride his new bike in case he hits something.

Any help or advice would be welcome.

[Bill]

(05-17-2010, 01:01 PM)datastuff Wrote:  My son has a very weak grip in his hands and is having difficulty stopping his new bike.

His bike has disk brakes, can you suggest a solution or give a guide on how to adjust the levers to help improve the power on braking.

At the moment he is afraid to ride his new bike in case he hits something.

Any help or advice would be welcome.

Wandering if you watched this video, http://bicycletutor.com/childs-hand-brake/ . If so let us know.

[JonB]

I assume they're cable brakes rather than hydros; lubricate the cables a fair bit, that makes a huge difference with cable brakes.

Do this in addition to Bill's posted video and it should be fine:
http://bicycletutor.com/lube-brake-shift-cables/

[Bob908]

Just bought a bike myself...Have been having other issues with my disc brakes.

Anyway have you tried to adjust them?... Adjusting won't change the grip strength needed but may allow you to move the grip strength to a better position. For example I prefer to have my brakes to have some "dead space" in the lever as I first grab it so that I have (in my opinion) better control of the brakes. I could move this in or out as I desire. If you move it too close to the handle there is a chance you could eventually bottom out on the handle bar as the brakes wear if you don't adjust them regularly or as you notice it.

I can't remember what adjustment I made to do that but shouldn't be hard to replicate if you think this would help I could go try it...