Basic gear question

[WJC1981]

Hi all, I have my bike and going to try it next week, however I have a question about gears.

I have Shimano gears and noticed that my brake lever moves and theres a small lever under it as well.

How do I change up and down gears? And I also see theres something called cross training, Im so confused.

Will moving the brake lever or the small lever make it easier or harder to pedal and which lever does what.

 

[Domus]

See here - HERE

 

[vickster]

Hi all, I have my bike and going to try it next week, however I have a question about gears.

I have Shimano gears and noticed that my brake lever moves and theres a small lever under it as well.

How do I change up and down gears? And I also see theres something called cross training, Im so confused.

Will moving the brake lever or the small lever make it easier or harder to pedal and which lever does what.

Cross chaining, having the chain on the big cog at the front and big ring on the front, rather than changing down to the small ring on the front

 

[CanucksTraveller]

Use your index finger to push the switch behind the right hand brake lever, and see what happens. You'll go up the gears.
Press the entire gear and brake lever firmly to the left, and you will change down the gears instead.
Just find a nice open piece of land like a car park and have a play around, it'll become clear.

 

[mjr]

Is that STI? Not all Shimano gears do that, happily.

 

[vickster]

He bought one of these so yes, modern Shimano STI
https://www.cube.eu/en/2020/bikes/road/road/attain/cube-attain-race-blacknwhite-2020/

 

[Specialeyes]

The little inner levers move from big-to-little (the derailleurs are spring-loaded so don't need much force, just a tap when going with the spring).
The brake levers move from little-to-big (it's longer than the little inner lever so easier to move against the springs).

The left hand controls the front derailleur. Pressing the left inner lever will shift you onto the smaller chainwheel and make pedalling easier but progress slower. Pressing the left brake lever will take you back to the big ring, so pedalling harder and going faster.

The right hand controls the rear derailleur and the effects are reversed.

Pressing the right inner lever moves you up to a higher gear (harder work, faster progress)
Pressing the right gear lever moves you down to a lower gear (easier pedalling, slower progress)

Cross-chaining, as mentioned above is when you have the chain running between opposite extremes (big-big or small-small). Folks get wound up by it, and it can cause the chain to rub on the cage of the front derailleur and make a rattling noise and wear components our prematurely, but it's not the end of the world for short periods.

Think of the front chainrings as 'high and low range' and the block of gears at the back (the cassette) as the finer selection. The gear ranges provided by your front chainrings will overlap a lot, so try to change chainrings (left hand, remember) before you reach the extremes of the cassette. If you drop to the inner ring at the front (inner click, left hand) preparing for an upcoming hill for example, then you'll probably need to click the inner right lever too to shift you back up a couple of sprockets at the back. This smoothes out the transition between the higher and lower ranges. And vice-versa when shifting back to the big ring - use both brake levers to shift up to the higher range but also up a sprocket or two at the back to keep your pedalling effort consistent.

You'll definitely use your right hand more than your left - that's natural.

 

[figbat]

I'd also add that it usually better to reduce your pedalling effort a little as you change gear - in other words you can and should keep pedalling but just without pushing really hard. This is especially worth doing for changes to bigger gears (when you are pushing the brake lever, either one).

 

[rogerzilla]

I find STI terribly unintuitive, having not grown up with it. Anyway, the brake lever always selects a bigger sprocket and the small black lever always selects a smaller sprocket. On some bikes there is a need to "trim" the front mechanism in certain gear combinations to avoid the chain rubbing, and a very small push on one of the levers should do it without actually changing gear.

The advantages are that you can just about change gear when riding out of the saddle, and simultaneous front and back changes are possible - if you have a "compact" chainset, you'll be doing a lot of those.

 

[BalkanExpress]

First and most importantly, have fun with the new bike

As the saying goes ""practice makes perfect" find somewhere quiet (now that non-essential shops are open this rules out the local IKEA car park) to go for a short ride and practice changing up and down the gears at the rear and at the front.

Not only will this give you some confidence that its all easier than it first looks, it will also help you decide which gears you feel most comfortable in.

If you are mathematically minded you you can work out the "gear inches" of each gear (how far you go for one full turn of the pedals) and this will let you see the order of the gears, as @Specialeyes has explained there is a point where the gears overlap https://sheldonbrown.com/gear-calc.html

If you are not mathematically minded, fear not I have no idea what the gear inches are on any of my bikes and I still have fun.

In essence, the small front chainring gives you gears for uphill (big cogs/spockets at the back) and on the flat (small cogs at the back). The big chainring at the front gives you gears for the flat (big cogs at the back) and for down hill (small cogs at the front). Depending on how fit you are and the local terrain, .you will decide whether you are more comfortable mainly on the small ring at the front or the large one

 

[Shearwater Missile]

One thing I will add about changing gears is that if you know or can see a hill coming up and you are in the front large and rear middle gears, it may be better to change the front to small first. The reason for this is that you will then be ready to change the rear to larger sprockets and less chance of cross chaining. If you don`t do this then you continually change to larger and larger on the back until you run out of gears. It is all about momentum or cadence as they call it ! Obviously what I have just said depends on how steep the hill or climb is. Just enjoy the ride.