Sound familiar? If you have a bike with lots of gears, you may be one of many people scratching your head trying to figure out what to do with them all. If so, you are in the majority. So why does your bike have so many and what will you do?
Shift, obviously! That’s the idea anyway.
First, let’s back up and explain why you have so many to begin with. Your car can get away with four or five gears because it has a powerful engine that spins from relatively slow to really fast without much complaint. That’s how your car can go from 0–20 in first gear. Not so for your body. People have tiny engines that are the strength of, say, a weed-whacker. And we like to pedal at a relatively constant speed, at least compared to a car. So first gear for us might go from 0–8. And on your way to that blazing 8 mph, you will find yourself plodding, then pedaling fast, then spinning your legs like a caffeinated hamster. Unless of course, you shift your gears. By shifting gears, either higher (harder) or lower (easier), we can match a comfortable pedal speed to the speed we want to go and the grade we’re riding on. So since comfortable pedal speed is narrow, our range (and number) of gears have grown wider.
Great, but what do you do with them? Try thinking of the gears this way to help you make sense of them. Stand over your bike and look down at your gears. You’ll see a chain that connects the gears in the front, in between the pedals, to the gears in the back, which live on the rear wheel. You will see two or three gears in the front and anywhere from one to 10 on the back.
Start with the front gears. The left gear shifter changes these. Think of these gears as a high, medium and low range. The big one is high and the little is low. Going up a hill, try low. Going really fast, try medium or high. The difference between each gear is substantial and they usually won’t shift while you are pedaling hard. You’ll have to pedal easy to get them to shift.
Now look at the gears in the back. The right gear shifter changes these. Remember: Right is rear for brakes and gears. Shifting between one gear and the next here is subtle because the size difference between one gear and the next is small, so this is where you fine tune your gear selection. They also don’t like to shift while you pedal hard, but they often will if you really have to.
Now put it all together. Pick a range in the front that matches the hill and your speed. Then use the rear gears to make small adjustments within that range. To make big changes, change the range your in. For little ones, shift the rear gears. Also, shift by feel, not necessarily by number. The numbers are generally confusing.
As far as the actually shifting goes, pedal easy while you do it and parts will last longer. If you have to force the shift lever, or it makes loud noises, ease up and see if it behaves better. If it won’t, get it checked out. If you force it, you can break it.
So shift often, and shift easy. And amaze your friends that you can use more than two gears on your bike. When you can, you’ll then be in the minority.
Erik West is a certified bicycle riding instructor and mechanic, who teaches alternative transportation for the Greater Portland Council of Governments, the Bicycle Coalition of Maine and The Bicycle Workshop. He generally has his nose in most things related to promoting pollution-free transportation in Maine. To learn more or make yourself heard, check out www.thebicycleworkshop.com or email him at erik@thebicycleworkshop.com.