{"id":41865,"date":"2024-06-30T05:08:11","date_gmt":"2024-06-30T12:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/averagejoecyclist.com\/?p=41865"},"modified":"2025-03-19T16:28:07","modified_gmt":"2025-03-19T23:28:07","slug":"modify-bike-thumb-arthritis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/averagejoecyclist.com\/modify-bike-thumb-arthritis\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Modify Your Bike to Cycle with Thumb Arthritis (CMC Arthritis) or De Quervain’s Tenosynovitis"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post is about how to modify your bike to cycle with thumb arthritis (CMC arthritis) . This kind of arthritis causes pain while cycling, especially while using your thumbs to change gears. Many cyclists (including me) eventually develop a common type of thumb arthritis, called CMC (carpometacarpal) arthritis. Since getting my diagnosis, I have modified my bike to make it easier to cycle with thumb arthritis without pain. Most of my pain occurred when I changed gears on my mountain bike using my trigger gear shifters. This post describes the cheap changes I made to modify my bike. I include several ideas for you to modify your bike to cycle\u00a0 with thumb arthritis more comfortably.<\/p>\n

Note: This modification would work equally well for cyclists with De Quervain’s tenosynovitis, which is a painful condition affecting the tendons on the thumb side of the wrist, caused by inflammation of the tendon sheath, often due to repetitive motions.<\/p>\n

What is Carpometacarpal Thumb Arthritis?<\/h2>\n

Carpometacarpal (CMC) arthritis causes a deterioration of the joint at the base of the thumb, leading to pain when grasping things, and when using rapid trigger shifters on a bike. It can be caused by \u201cactivities and jobs that put high stress on the thumb joint\u201d (Mayo Clinic<\/a>).<\/p>\n

After decades of doing a lot<\/strong> of cycling, I developed CMC thumb arthritis. It took a while (and an X-ray) to rule out other causes, notably De Quervain’s tenosynovitis. In the meantime, it was becoming quite agonizing to change gears on my bike.<\/p>\n

Once I developed thumb arthritis, I rapidly became aware of how often I changed gears on my bike. Basically, I am almost constantly using my right thumb to change the gears on the front hub. As my bike has trigger shifters (also known as rapid fire shifters), gearing down on the front hub is done entirely with my right thumb. Over time, this was becoming so unbearably painful that I was trying to avoid changing gears, and even starting to avoid cycling.<\/p>\n

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