It looks like they took an old friction shifter and made it look like a shift for a car for novelty purposes. I don’t recall seeing any either but they probably weren’t all that popular.
They were likely trying to give some kind of visual reference and more lever length for a kid to make a friction shift without indexing. There was only a short time when downtube/lever shifters were indexed and it was really only mid tier and up. All the low end stuff was friction only. It is unlikely that most kids grasped when to shift the front versus the back, as this is a 2 × 5 speed. Most kids are doing pretty good if they can remember to brake mostly with the rear to avoid going over the bars.
Braking mostly with the rear brake is not good. Learn proper brake modulation and your front brake will be used much more often since it has a lot more stopping power. You won’t go otb if learn to brake properly and learn body positioning.
Obviously it is more complicated. The first step is simply “don’t hard pull the front brake in panic.” For a small child, complications beyond “squeeze this and that to stop while maintaining scary balance” is already complicated at first.
I’m a former buyer for a chain of bike shops. You have no idea what I’ve seen. Kids can be incredibly stupid. They are generally fast learners, and it is easy to forget the earliest learning steps. I’m very familiar with the earliest learning steps. Even adults are not much better in many instances where they never learned to ride a bike. Coordination and understanding of many systems at once is a challenging mental and physical task at first.
Ok…I remember 10 speed bikes. I DON’T remember a stick shift.
It looks like they took an old friction shifter and made it look like a shift for a car for novelty purposes. I don’t recall seeing any either but they probably weren’t all that popular.
Found the uncool kids … don’t worry, I never saw the stick shifters either … so I was uncool too :(
🤓
They were likely trying to give some kind of visual reference and more lever length for a kid to make a friction shift without indexing. There was only a short time when downtube/lever shifters were indexed and it was really only mid tier and up. All the low end stuff was friction only. It is unlikely that most kids grasped when to shift the front versus the back, as this is a 2 × 5 speed. Most kids are doing pretty good if they can remember to brake mostly with the rear to avoid going over the bars.
Braking mostly with the rear brake is not good. Learn proper brake modulation and your front brake will be used much more often since it has a lot more stopping power. You won’t go otb if learn to brake properly and learn body positioning.
Obviously it is more complicated. The first step is simply “don’t hard pull the front brake in panic.” For a small child, complications beyond “squeeze this and that to stop while maintaining scary balance” is already complicated at first.
I’m a former buyer for a chain of bike shops. You have no idea what I’ve seen. Kids can be incredibly stupid. They are generally fast learners, and it is easy to forget the earliest learning steps. I’m very familiar with the earliest learning steps. Even adults are not much better in many instances where they never learned to ride a bike. Coordination and understanding of many systems at once is a challenging mental and physical task at first.