Gears..... Help :(

[stuarttunstall]

Hi

As you know I have just got back on the bike after along time and for some reason I just can't master using the gears I seem to keep getting it all wrong and end up stopping! lol

So, can anyone give me a idiot guide?

I have 3 chain wheels at the from and 10 at the back... I have managed to get in the right one for the hill I stopped on last week on the first/second time I have been out, and yesterday and today I changed to the small front and large rear and managed to get up it....

On another long slop I go down I do the same but just seem to run out of steam.. now this may just be me and my legs give up or I am doing it wrong lol ...

STuart

 

[Heltor Chasca]

For a week or more maybe stay on the middle front ring and forget about shifting. Spend time mastering the rear cassette.

Once you are happy, then use the small for going up. And the big one for down. When you are stronger, use the biggest you can manage, up, flat or down. The thing to remember is that the front derailleur is the one you change the least. The rear cassette is there for fine tuning your cadence.

It will all become second nature. Someone will chime in and explain more eloquently and may even talk about cross chaining. YouTube is also a great resource.

Good work by the way.

 

[Nyooome-nore]

so you're on a 3x10, if your on a "road" setup then it is probably 30 on the bottom ring, whilst a city crank might go down to 28, not sure about a mountain setup. whilst the cassette at the back would hopefully be a 28 on the largest cog, but could be a 25 or 32... so it is all about those gear ratios.

The bigger the difference with your front gear being larger than the rear cog the harder your job is (despite being a huge fan of numbers, only recently realised my cassette only went up to 25 rather than 28!).

if you could send us some picture of your bike, especially the crank and casette, or even better the page/manufacturers bit about your bike i could look at that side. As for getting up hills, not been a problem for me as I'm slim and slightly mad, but I'm sure there are people here with stacks of technique information to give you

 

[stuarttunstall]

That will be one on my big issues, which was one of the main reason for the bike, I am still a lot over weight, even for the bike technically, but that is coming off slowly, well half a stone in 7 weeks cant be bad, but I know that will be a big factor, plus although I have been going back to the gym for the last couple of months I cannot say I am fit.... so again that will be a factor...

Looking at the Scott website is states the following....

Crank set - Shimano FC-T8000 / 48x36x26 / w/CG
Casseyye - Shimano CS-HG500-10 -11-34 T

 

[Biker Joe]

What Heltor Chasca said.

 

[stuarttunstall]

For a week or more maybe stay on the middle front ring and forget about shifting. Spend time mastering the rear cassette.

Once you are happy, then use the small for going up. And the big one for down. When you are stronger, use the biggest you can manage, up, flat or down. The thing to remember is that the front derailleur is the one you change the least. The rear cassette is there for fine tuning your cadence.

It will all become second nature. Someone will chime in and explain more eloquently and may even talk about cross chaining. YouTube is also a great resource.

Good work by the way.

I think my biggest issues are, 1. Not been on a bike for 35 years, 2. I am still over-weight, and 3. I am not really that fit, all will have an effect, plus as I am large I keep thinking I am going to break the bike.... although everyone I have spoken to has told me not to worry... as I said I am about 10KG heavier than the manufacture states for the bike

I will try as you suggest, I hope to go out in the morning, I suppose it is just plain and simple learning again, and i have only been out 4 time since I purchased the bike... may only be 4 times on Saturday/Sunday mornings, but I have done 16 miles over the 4 days and more important burnt a little fat off... rather than sitting in a chair, having a coffee on my laptop...

I did 5 miles last weekend, 2.5 each day my first time out and 6 miles yesterday and today, and hopefully tomorrow, just need to get used to the gears and get a bit more confident.. or should I say a lot more...

 

[Nyooome-nore]

Hey Stuart, so just looking at the gearing, that's a great (but slow) , going that slow setup, maybe your lack of speed when you're pumping your legs is making you feel less able to get up? The gears work out roughly so that for every spin of the cranks (when on your lowest front and biggest back) turns the wheel 3/4 of a turn can feel odd/hard to maintain. going up a few gears on the rear can put that ration to 1:1 for crank/wheel turns. it will be a little harder but you will be miving more for your effort too.

The others have come in with some excellent tips on how to get up the hill, my 2 cents is as above, winding your legs at a high speed with little movement feels incredibly weird, and no one likes climbing, you jest get used to it I would advise that you try to keep your legs moving relatively quickly though (cadence between 80-100 if you feel comfy doing that). The slower your cadence when climbing, the more your will lurch and stutter in your progress, which also adds to that feeling of weirdness. An other technique thing, keep your ankles and knees "tucked in" - that is to say keep your legs ankles etc all in a line facing forward rather than doing what so many people do and let them bow out, it is terrible for your joints, and horribly inefficient.

most importantly, keep on keeping on! That's excelent news about the weight loss, and the progress, made some observations about my own development since january in the saddle, hope this helps

 

[stuarttunstall]

Hey Stuart, so just looking at the gearing, that's a great (but slow) , going that slow setup, maybe your lack of speed when you're pumping your legs is making you feel less able to get up? The gears work out roughly so that for every spin of the cranks (when on your lowest front and biggest back) turns the wheel 3/4 of a turn can feel odd/hard to maintain. going up a few gears on the rear can put that ration to 1:1 for crank/wheel turns. it will be a little harder but you will be miving more for your effort too.

The others have come in with some excellent tips on how to get up the hill, my 2 cents is as above, winding your legs at a high speed with little movement feels incredibly weird, and no one likes climbing, you jest get used to it I would advise that you try to keep your legs moving relatively quickly though (cadence between 80-100 if you feel comfy doing that). The slower your cadence when climbing, the more your will lurch and stutter in your progress, which also adds to that feeling of weirdness. An other technique thing, keep your ankles and knees "tucked in" - that is to say keep your legs ankles etc all in a line facing forward rather than doing what so many people do and let them bow out, it is terrible for your joints, and horribly inefficient.

most importantly, keep on keeping on! That's excelent news about the weight loss, and the progress, made some observations about my own development since january in the saddle, hope this helps

Everything above has given me something to work on, thank you

On the weight front I am 7 stone lighter than I was 6 years ago, just need to loose another 3 with half a stone gone in the last few weeks....

 

[Heltor Chasca]

This is inspirational. Recent turbo training has taught me to use my heart and lungs by having a higher cadence (quicker spin) rather than grind slowly. This cooks your legs and is far less efficient for weight loss and fitness gain.

According to the coaches of TrainerRoad.

 

[stuarttunstall]

Think I may add a bit more leg work to my routine at the gym, try to make them stronger

Not sure how accurate the heart rate monitors on the tread mill at the gym are but they all seem to say that in the 2 months I have been going back my heart rate has dropped by about 10 beats/min after 15 mins walking up hill ...

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

Crank set - Shimano FC-T8000 / 48x36x26 / w/CG
Casseyye - Shimano CS-HG500-10 -11-34 T

If I read your spec right, you've got a 36 tooth middle ring, and a rear cluster which has 10 sprockets ranging from 11 to 34 teeth. That is a very wide range of gearing on the middle ring alone, and really you should be able to do pretty much ALL your riding on the middle front ring with no need to use either the small or large ones. IIRC, you said something about having 42 mm tyres elsewhere, which means theoretically, your wheels are 27.8 inches in diameter. If you multiply out the highest and lowest ratios:- 36T front to 11T rear gives you a top gear of 91 inches, and 36T front to 34T rear gives you a bottom gear of 29 inches. That is plenty low enough to climb gradients and plenty high enough to go at a fair speed downhill or on the flat with a tailwind.
My 18 speed Raleigh Pioneer has 48/38/28 on the front and 14-16-18-21-24-28 on the back.. Almost all my riding is done either with the 38T front running to the 14-24 range on the back, or the 48T front running to the 16-24 on the back. I run 35 mm tyres so my wheel diameter is slightly less than yours. The lowest gear I generally use is therefore 43 inches and the highest gear is 82 inches, and I hardly ever use my 93 inch top gear at all as I find it too high - even though I am quite a bit lighter than you.
What I would do in your position is to find out the tooth count on all the intermediate gear cogs on the rear cluster and do the maths, so you know exactly what each gear ratio is and increase your familiarity with what the ratio steps are between the gears. When you are fully used to what a particular "inch" gear feels like to push against and performs like on the middle ring, you can then do the numbers again for the large and small rings. Because you have so many gears, there are going to be quite a large number that are virtually identical to each other, even though you may be on a different front chainring. therefore I doubt you stand to gain very much, if anything, from even bothering with using the large chainring at all. The highest (48 front to 11 rear) gear on your bike is 121 inches and no-one apart from a serious competitive cyclist doing flat-out descents has any use for a gear that high.

 

[stuarttunstall]

Great comment, thank you for taking the time to write it... I will test that out

 

[DCBassman]

As a relative know-nothing, the middle-ring-thing is what works for me. The big ring rarely gets a look-in, the small ring is there to get silly-spinning when you're already on the gr...largest rear cog and you're running out of steam. Probably all wrong, but works for me!
And...good to see you back.

 

[adamhearn]

Whilst @SkipdiverJohn did explain things, I much prefer @DCBassman's input which can be boiled down to "stick to the middle ring unless you want to go down or up hills"

I personally haven't the first clue about what gear inches my bike has and how many combinations are the same. More importantly I really don't care either

 

[Biker Joe]

Whilst @SkipdiverJohn did explain things, I much prefer @DCBassman's input which can be boiled down to "stick to the middle ring unless you want to go down or up hills"

I personally haven't the first clue about what gear inches my bike has and how many combinations are the same. More importantly I really don't care either

Good for you. You'll gradually get the hang of it. Go with what is most comfortable for you. You'll be alright.