"How do you use the gears on a road bike?"

[slowmotion]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wm9X0KpN6iQ

Absolutely brilliiant @HLaB! That's just the ticket. I'll send my pal the link. Thank-you

 

[Dec66]

I wish somebody had demonstrated how to shift from the big ring to the middle one properly on my new Cube Peloton the other day, while I was at the bottom of Jewels Hill, about to climb Saltbox Hill...

(Did I mention I'd got a new bike?)

 

[GravityFighter]

This is the best written piece I've found online: http://pedalpowerct.com/articles/how-to-shift-shimano-sti-levers-pg170.htm

 

[sanddancer]

I like the brake lever gear selectors and the fact you dont have to reach down but you knew where you were at a glance with the old tube levers

I do tend to cross chain but try to avoid it in the main

http://www.bicyclechainrings.com/crosschaining.html

 

[slowmotion]

Thank you very much for all your posts. I sent them to my pal and he very much appreciated your help.

 

[User16625]

I dont remember having any difficulties working out how to use the brake and gear levers when I first used a road bike. Bear in mind I only have 2 brain cells, one is always drunk and the other is sleeping. So if I can do it............

 

[bonsaibilly]

1. The advice sought must have been about the shifting on drop bars and not generally "how do gears work?" Because the gearing theory is identical across different types of derailleur geared bike.

2. Am I missing something here or is it very, very easy to describe shifting to someone?

BB

 

[Ajax Bay]

@bonsaibilly You're missing something: an appreciation that describing shifting may be easy but what's easy for some to understand is harder for others, and that the OP is more than satisfied with the advice given from @HLaB @GravityFighter (25 days ago).

 

[bonsaibilly]

@bonsaibilly You're missing something: an appreciation that describing shifting may be easy but what's easy for some to understand is harder for others, and that the OP is more than satisfied with the advice given from @HLaB @GravityFighter (25 days ago).

Yebbut, the post was not about the "customer" understanding how to shift, it was about the "service provider" being able to describe or explain it. Which don't need a video. I do appreciate that S-M is on Campag so that is a different technique but surely it doesn't need a video to tell someone "this lever does this, and that lever does that - go on, try it out"? BB

 

[slowmotion]

Yebbut, the post was not about the "customer" understanding how to shift, it was about the "service provider" being able to describe or explain it. Which don't need a video. I do appreciate that S-M is on Campag so that is a different technique but surely it doesn't need a video to tell someone "this lever does this, and that lever does that - go on, try it out"? BB

A friend wanted some advice on using the gears on his new road bike. I'm fairly familiar with them, but I wasn't when I first got a road bike about six years ago. I find it quite hard to explain something that is completely second nature to me now. At the beginning, I would have been grateful to have some more advice than the two minutes that the LBS gave me. My friend's bike has Shimano, the one I have access to right now is Campag. I figured that using a Campag to demonstrate use of a Shimano would just be confusing, hence my request for links.

It's that simple.

 

[bonsaibilly]

A request for a written explanation would have been perfectly sufficient. BB

 

[slowmotion]

A request for a written explanation would have been perfectly sufficient. BB

I don't understand what the problem is. Could you elaborate?

BTW, is this The Five Minute Argument?

 

[swee'pea99]

Given your descriptions of what your friend's after, this may well not be much use, but the best piece of adviv I ever got about gears was to think about them in a completely different way. It's not that the lower gears make it easier to go up hills, and the high ones are for when you want to go faster. The gears are there to maintain your ideal cadence. So, find out the speed you're comfortable with your legs going round, then use the gears to keep them going round at that speed whatever speed you're doing. So you'll need lower gears to do that when you're going up a hill, because you go slowly up a hill, because it's hard; but then you'll want to shift up to go down the other side, because gravity will make you go fast and you don't want your legs going like windmills.

Once I'd got that in my head, the rest was just mechanical practice-till-familiar.

 

[growingvegetables]

Given your descriptions of what your friend's after, this may well not be much use, but the best piece of adviv I ever got about gears was to think about them in a completely different way. It's not that the lower gears make it easier to go up hills, and the high ones are for when you want to go faster. The gears are there to maintain your ideal cadence. So, find out the speed you're comfortable with your legs going round, then use the gears to keep them going round at that speed whatever speed you're doing. So you'll need lower gears to do that when you're going up a hill, because you go slowly up a hill, because it's hard; but then you'll want to shift up to go down the other side, because gravity will make you go fast and you don't want your legs going like windmills.

Once I'd got that in my head, the rest was just mechanical practice-till-familiar.

+1

And how I got my kids' heads around gears?

- coupla days (flexible - as long as it took!) riding using the middle ring only, and getting used to the effects of the right hand shifting the cogs;
- then add the left hand shifting the rings.

 

[slowmotion]

+1

And how I got my kids' heads around gears?

- coupla days (flexible - as long as it took!) riding using the middle ring only, and getting used to the effects of the right hand shifting the cogs;
- then add the left hand shifting the rings.

That's very good! I'll pass it down the line.