I know, this is probably a REALLY stupid question.
Just got a bike for the first time in twenty years. The only bikes I’ve had in the past had one gear shift, and maybe 4 gears.
This thing is by FAR the fanciest bike I’ve ever had, and I don’t know how to use it.
Do the two different gear shifts go to the front and back wheels? How do I know when to shift one and not the other?
Y’all can be condescending and explain to me like I’m 5 if you want, I know this is probably the stupidest of stupid questions for a bike subreddit. I’d just like any advice yall got.
by Power_NeXus
4 Comments
Just pedal lightly, but always moving, and change the gears to your liking. (Don’t change gears under a lot of pressure on the pedals)
Left= big changes/jumps
Right= small changes/jumps
Just make sure you are riding always at a comfortable amount of effort for your level of fitness. That’s it.
You’ll learn about cross chaining later.
In the beginning don’t change many gears at once, give it time to click into place.
Also don’t use both at the same time, either a left or right shifter at a time.
Eventually you’ll understand what makes you go faster or slower or harder or easier…
There is a vast variety of gear shifting systems! It’ll depend on the specifics of your bike.
I have a Brompton bike that has two shifters like this. Both shifters control mechanisms at the back wheel. The bike has a two sprockets and a derailleur controlled by one shifter, and then a three speed internal hub gear controlled by the other shifter. But that’s a pretty unusual set-up. Mostly one shifter controls options at the bottom bracket, where you pedal, and the other controls back at the rear wheel axle.
Mostly nowadays the rear wheel has more options… looks like you have 8 speeds in the rear. So mostly you want to be using the rear to adjust for small changes in slope, wind, etc. The front derailleur, at the bottom bracket, has just two options. Usually that will be a big jump. Mostly that’s when you switch from going uphill to downhill or vice versa.
But it’s not always that way. In the old days it was common for the front to control a small shift and the back to control bigger shifts. This was mostly with 2 speeds in the front and 5 speeds in the back. With 8 speeds in the back, I don’t remember seeing smaller shifts in the front. But with my Brompton, that’s how it is. The 2 speed option is smaller shifts, the 3 speed option is bigger shifts.
Another detail… with two derailleurs, one at the bottom bracket and one at the rear axle, you generally want to avoid cross chaining. So you don’t want to be in 1 at the front and 8 in the back, or 2 in the front and 1 in the back. Not really the end of the world, but it’s less efficient and puts more wear on the parts. Most bike can tolerate it ok, but still. One good trick to learn is that if say you are in 1 at the front and 5 in the back, and you are still pedaling too fast so you want to upshift, instead of going to 1,6, shift both and go to maybe 2,4.
Also, again assuming these are both derailleur shifters, you want to continue pedaling while you are shifting, but without pushing hardly at all. Sometimes you have to anticipate. For example, if you come up to a stop sign or red light etc., you have to down shift as you are coming to a stop. If you stop in a high gear, you cannot shift when you are stopped or even when you are going slowly. So you have to downshift before you really need to. This happens too e.g. when traveling across a slope and then turning up the hill. You need to have downshifted before you really need to.
But maybe your bike has internal hub gears in the back, some do. One big advantage of internal hub gears is that you can shift when you are stopped or without pedaling. I would say that internal hub gears are better for going slow or start and stop like in traffic. Derailleur gears are better for going fast and steady.
The simplest explanation that I can think of is to watch the numbers on the gear shifters:
* small numbers = climbing hills
* large numbers = going fast
The smaller the number on each shifter, the easier it will be to pedal and the slower you will go. These gears are good for riding up hills. The larger the number on each shifter, the harder it will be to pedal and the faster you will go. These gears are good for going fast on flat terrain and for going down hills.
I was going to write a reply but I think Sheldon Brown’s introductory post about gears pretty much is it.
[https://www.sheldonbrown.com/gears.html](https://www.sheldonbrown.com/gears.html)