How to Change Gears on a Bike

Bike Category: 

Changing gears on a bike is the heart of what may make or break your biking experience. Even though a mountain bike is featured in this tutorial, the information can easily be applied to road and triathlon bikes.

What you need to remember is that the rear derailleur is controlled by your right hand and the front derailleur is controlled by your left hand. What normally tends to happen (unless you are constantly in changing terrain) is that you adjust the freewheel (left hand) setting first and then play with the combinations on the back.

On your rear derailleur, the bigger the sprocket, the lower the gear. So say you’re pedaling along and you come to a hill. Inclines require that you have a faster cadence, which means pedaling faster but with less resistance. This is so that you don’t screw up your rhythm and can make it up the hill without grinding or pumping the pedals as you go, reducing the danger of falling. The same principle can be applied to anywhere where there is loose terrain as well, such as sand.

When you’re coming off that same hill, you want to go into higher gears so that you have a bit of leverage and catch to pedal harder and to get more speed. You may want to go to the biggest chainring in the front for more power and speed downhill. The smallest chainring is for those tough climbs or very loose surfaces.

It is highly recommendable that you do these gear shifts before you hit the bottom of the hill or the stretch of sand. What can happen if you are changing gears while going up a hill, for example, is that you can put a lot of strain on your chain and it can cause it to weaken. This can also happen in crossgear situations, when you have the chain running from polar opposite points from the back to the front. This action can really stretch out your chain, resulting in a possible chain replacement or (if you ride enough with a stretch in your chain) a chainring and cassette replacement (super costly) as well.