For those of you who may be a little uneasy about gear-shifting on a bicycle, this is an excellent read! How to Shift Bicycle Gears Gear Shifting Tips & A Tale from Your Bike Mechanic Ive been fixing, selling, and talking to people about bicycles for over twenty-five years. Yet with all this experience, folks still sometimes surprise me. They teach me things I didnt know, or they remind me of things I just assumed everybody knew, things that I take for granted having worked on bikes for so long. Here’s an example of what I mean. We had a customer bring in his road bike a while back because he was having chronic problems with his gears slipping, especially when he pedaled hard up hills or when he was starting off. We had recently replaced his chain and cassette and made all the requisite gear adjustments, but he was still having problems. He returned to us for another look. We took the bike out for a test ride, and double-checked that all the adjustments were done properly. We noted that there was some wear on the front chainrings, but saw nothing obvious that would explain his gear slipping. Now Ive learned over the years to listen carefully to customers as they explain problems they are having with their bikes; and although their descriptions sometimes take a bit of translation or reading between the lines to get to the problem, I’m careful not to dismiss even the silliest sounding explanations. I’ve often learned something new in these circumstances and have enjoyed diagnosing mysterious problems I haven’t seen before. (After so many years, the finer, more esoteric points tend to keep one’s interest.) This gear-slipping episode was getting interesting. At this point, since the gears wont slip for us, (It never happens for the mechanic when you bring it to the shop, does it?) I suggest that we go ride together and see if his gears would slip on him while I observed. So, we ride around the block. As we come to the stop sign on our test route, I see immediately that he has not down shifted to a lower gear before he stopped. As he starts off in high gear, I can just hear the transmission groan as he loads it with some 200lbs of muscle. It’s no wonder he’d been having gear issues. All this time he’s been starting off from a dead stop in high gear! Now our rider is a sharp guy. He’d had this bike for close to a year. I assumed he had mastered his gears long ago, that he knew to down shift before stopping. I assumed everybody knew you had to down shift before stopping. And if they didnt, theyd figure it out after the first time they had to start off in high gear. Not so. Even with all these years of experience, Mike still learns new stuff. In this case, about assumptions. It’s with this experience in mind that I submit these gear shifting tips. You may already know this stuff, but you know what they say about assuming. But first a couple of fundamentals; number one: the purpose of gears is to make the bike easier to pedal up hills and enable you to pedal down them. The idea is to maintain a constant pace on the pedals and change your gears according to the wind and terrain conditions. Once you find your pace, that rhythm, you can ride all the way to California if you want to. Fundamental number two: you must be pedaling when you change gears. Thats because the chain has to be moving in order for the derailleurs to de-rail the chain from sprocket to sprocket. Thats also why its best not to click the shifters when you’re sitting still. Besides stretching the gear cables, the bike immediately changes gears when you start off again, usually with some very disconcerting noises. Shifting your gears while sitting still is like fingernails on a chalkboard to your bike mechanic. Now back to the gear shifting tips. Tip one: Pedal at a brisk pace. It’s better to pedal at a brisk pace using the easier to pedal gears than to muscle the harder gears more slowly. This technique will increase your stamina over a longer ride and will enable you to accelerate more quickly if you need to jump. I promise you’ll still get a good leg workout. A brisk pace on the pedals also improves the shifting. Tip two: And this is hugely important. Lighten the pressure on the pedals when you shift. Keep them turning, but dont be muscling down on them while you shift. Lightening the pressure on the pedals significantly smoothes the gear change, reduces those grinding noises when you shift, and lengthens the life of your drive train. You’ll have to anticipate your shifts a bit as you approach the hills, but it only takes a beat to change your gears on a hill once you get your timing down. Tip three: Use your low numbered gears on the left with your low numbered gears on the right; and use your high numbered ones with the high ones. Thus, if youre in gear number one on the left, you should use it with gear numbers one through four on the right. Likewise, if youre in number three on the left, you should use it with gear numbers five and above on the right. This tip has to do with chain line. Although no real damage is done using the wrong gears together, avoiding them prevents those rattles and rubs you sometimes hear. With the number of gears that come on today’s bikes, you can avoid mixing your highs and your lows and still find a comfortable gear in which to ride. On road bikes, where you have to look down to see what sprockets the chain is on to determine what gear your in, avoid running the large sprockets on the front with the large ones in the back, and similarly, avoid using the small ones in the front with the small ones in the back. Another way to say the same thing is, when you’re chain is on the inboard ring on the front, it should be on the inboard cogs in the back. Similarly, when you’re chain is on the outboard ring on the front, it should be on the outboard cogs in the back. Tip Four: Remember to shift back to a low gear before you stop so that you’ll be in an easy gear for starting out again. When to change gears will be pretty obvious. You’ll want to shift to an easier pedaling gear (i.e. down shift to a lower number) when the bike gets hard to pedal up hills, and then shift to a higher gear (higher number) so your pedals can catch up when you go down one. Thus, we have come full circle on our gear shifting discussion. Gears make it easier to go up hills and let you pedal down them. So the moral of this whole gear shifting story is this: Never hesitate to ask your bike mechanic questions about your gears, even if you do become the subject of a bike mechanics tale. But if he (or she) cant duplicate the problem youre having, dont be surprised if they ask you: Do you pedal at a brisk pace when you shift your gears; do you lighten the pressure on the pedals when you shift; do you avoid certain gear combinations; and do you start out in low gear? If you say yes to all of these questions, then your bike mechanic will look for other problems. It may turn out to be something interesting.
Posted on: Fri, 29 Aug 2014 17:26:36 +0000