How to PROPERLY shift gears on a bicycle?

[Music] hi welcome to by gremlin youtube channel and today i will talk about how to shift gears on a bicycle that is something that many experienced cyclists know and that some unexperienced don't know and also this video might show some info that even the experienced cyclists don't know or don't know in all the details so i will create in the timeline of this video like small uh chapters so you can see it in the timeline and skip to the parts that interest you so you don't have to go through all the talking and let's begin first thing i will tell you is a shocking fact you would not believe practically every bicycle has only about 10 different gear ratios okay i'll put this don't need it right now what do i mean by that let's take a look at this bicycle this bicycle has three chainrings in the front and i think about nine in the back one two three four five six okay and nine in the back and when bicycles are sold they are sold like multiplying the number of chainings in the front with the number of the chainrings or sprockets in the rear so this bicycle would be like 27 speeds well that is not really the case it sounds good for marketing but it's not really the case why because when you use a combination of the largest chainring on the front with the largest chaining on the rear you get roughly about the same uh gear ratio i will put a link to my article explaining gear ratios and how difficult it is to paddle basically to put it simply anyway i'll put that uh article in this video description okay but the same gear ratio can be achieved if you put your chain on the smallest of the three chainrings in the front and also on the smallest of the nine chainrings in the rear you get similar difficulty of turning your your pedals when going with uh by similar speed so you don't have the entire number of combinations available to give you different gear ratios there might be just slight difference but it's not really relevant another thing to consider why i chose this example is if you want to achieve that kind of gear ratio in both these examples that i just told the chain would be very severely angled going from the inside of the bicycle to the complete outside or if we are on the largest chaining on the front and the largest at the rear then it's going the other way but it's at the greatest possible angle which is not very good because it makes the chain wear exaggerated and the chainring wear also exaggerated and it is more likely to have your chain skip or get off chaining or rear sprocket when it's ridden that way especially on the force and if you're riding on a bumpy terrain so the best way to achieve that gear ratio is to on a bicycle with three front trainings to put the chain on the middle chainring in the front and choose one of the mid chain rings at the rear that provide the closest gear ratio that you want com compared to those examples that i've given now trying to explain this it's it's very simple when you understand it but the first time this was explained to me i had to sit down and think it over then try it on my bicycle at that time i had the 3.3 times 6 drive train and even that was still confusing but this what i'm explaining goes in the same way for three times 11 or 2 times 11 or 2 times 12 with the newest shimano uh my mtb drivetrains and also for fuel rears at the back it also goes for two times six or three times six or three times hour whatever combination the principle is the same and i hope this will help you understand it you can completely disregard these numbers okay now let's look at this picture in the middle you can completely disregard all the numbers no matter how many chainrings you have at the front and regardless of how many chainings you have at the back when you are on the innermost chaining at the front you will use the innermost part of the cassette so if you have six sprockets at the rear you will avoid using the smallest two at the outside of the cassette if you have 11 or 10 you will avoid using the outmost three because total cassette width is relatively similar the number of sprockets increases and when that happens their spacing decreases but the chain angle remains the same so we are now concerned only with the chain angle here i don't know if it's visible out just a minute okay let's try now okay let's try to draw the chain angle okay it's not the best drawing in the world but i will post a link to my article that explains this also with a better picture anyway so we are looking to avoid having our chain severely cross chained as if it would be if we went with all the way to the smallest here this is not the realistic ratio of sizes or distance but it is like looking the bicycle from behind parallel to the longitudinal length of the bicycle anyway but in even in real life you can expect the severe cross-chaining combinations to start catching on to the adjacent largest chain ring or to start scratching on the front derailleur cage or so you can you can have your chain start scratching here in some combinations especially when being on the largest in the front and using the some of the largest at the rear that is why you don't have to be concerned with the number of gears just avoid using the outermost rear sprockets when you are on your innermost chaining and also let's look at this picture okay sorry this one you should also avoid using the innermost like 30 of the sprockets no matter how many gears you have like if you have six it's the the innermost one if you have ten it's the innermost two or three but you should avoid using the innermost sprockets on the rear with the outermost front chaining why i'm using this innermost and outermost because uh some systems have only two chains at the front and we'll get to the one x system one by that only have one okay but for now we're sticking with three so that's what you would and when you are on the middle chaining like let's say take this picture you should avoid some ten percent of the outer and ten percent of the inner again we are looking to have an relatively parallel chain line we don't want the chain to go to to go at a severe angle that is the whole philosophy now with with two two chain rings in the front when they are aligned properly that is called chain line it means having the middle section of the front chainring set be in line when you're looking parallel to the bicycle with the mid section of the cassette that is getting the chain line right it can be sometimes off by a few millimeters sometimes you do that deliberately i also have a article explaining chain chain line i will link that as well in the video's description but this is the this is the basics we'll show it later on the bicycle when you have only two chain rings then it is similar only you do you don't have this middle one and these outer two are a bit closer together closer to the middle and in that case the the philosophy is the same with the outermost you don't use about 30 percent of the innermost rear sprockets and with the innermost chaining you don't use about 30 percent of the outermost brackets now my videos are all very long and very detailed on the opinions are divided divided everyone thinks that sucks and i think it's it's brilliant so i will now uh discuss uh caveat that is uh very uh how to say uh it's modern it's now happening it's current and that problem is the modern uh to buy or especially road bike trainings that have the largest chaining of 50 teeth and the smaller one 34 teeth it is designed to allow a wide range of gears but with using only two front chainrings now i will not discuss why i think that's like a goal in itself or a triple front chaining does the job and i'll link an article in my on my website about that but it's not modern it's modern to have fewer chainings okay so they made that combination but the problem with that combination is that for a wide majority of people uh when they are on the front chaining with 50 teeth they usually have to go all the way angled on their cassette because if they use one of the smaller sprockets from that largest chain front chaining they cannot turn the pedals easily enough on flats only on downhills on the other hand if they are when they are riding on flights if they put the chain on the smaller 34 tooth toothed chainring they would have to move the chain at the rear all the way to the smallest fuel sprockets this time in order to make the pedaling be difficult enough so they don't just spin in 200 rounds per minute like a rabbit so that's that combination is not very practical and a better solution is to have a 46 by 30 combination of front chainrings which is now a bit less available at least in my country but i think that is a more reasonable combination with the cassettes that are available what do i mean by that cassettes start from 11 to or from 12 teeth usually then they go to how many however many on mtb cassettes it's now all over to 40 teeth and on road bike cassettes is 32 or 28 or something hi and the problem with that uh 50 by 34 crank would be sold if the cassette was made to be like common sense like start with 14 and then have 15 16 and then two teeth gaps and then all the way to i don't know 32 or even 34. that would bring a bit more weight but it would also bring because more teeth are engaged longer durability longer life of chains and cassette especially cassette chain rings and it would make those cranks more useful and the things would be a bit longer lasting so that would be a good solution but it's very difficult to find such cases they are sold as junior racing sometimes for road bicycles and they cost a lot more than they say ordinary cassettes so every cassette every chaining that has below 13 teeth has more mechanical losses because chain gets at a very awkward angle bent and when the force is applied and very few teeth of the cassette are are put in are doing the work okay so now we'll try to show it how this works and i will also explain another important thing about changing gears on a bicycle and especially when we are talking about bicycles with derailleurs the another important thing is to not put a lot of load on your pedals when you are changing the gear so if you are loading your pedals to pedal to go faster and faster or to keep your speed when you want to change gear you should make that turning of the pedals a bit slower so that it is not so that no pressure is felt on the pedals against the the rear wheel drag i'm not sure if i explain it correctly but here we are winding up and then if i want to switch gears i will just slow down a bit so that pedals are turning slower than it is needed to further increase the speed of the wheel so there is no load on the front or rear chainrings and then after i finish the changing gear i can continue putting more force let's see what happens if i'm loading the if i'm loading the the pedals while trying to change gears okay i will hold the and press the the rear brake and now i will try to shift and let's see what happens if i destroy my friend's chain i'll get a new one it's very difficult and it's getting it's getting stuck not not just because the here you can see you can catch this with the camera i hope from this angle maybe it's better here especially is critical this is critical when shifting up shifting on the front you see how the chain is stuck here and trying to move to the largest front chaining and when the force is applied this is all under tension and you can easily break the chain doing this so it's not a very wise thing to do similar problem happens when you are going up a hill and you forgot to downshift in time and you need to make the the gear ratio lower and so we're trying to shift to the larger chainings at the back but if you put a lot of force it does put a lot more strain on the on the chain and on some systems it can cause the chain to break even when shifting at the rear i wrote the special article on my website about the systems that have only one chaining at the front and of course with those systems all this starting story about chain being at an at an angle and how to avoid cross chaining to get the desired gear ratio is of course mute it's it's not relevant because you are bound to have your chain highly angled when you are using the fastest or the slowest gear on one by drive trains and that is one of the downsides of the one by drivetrains they are i like to joke they are solving a problem that doesn't exist but uh on in some uses they are useful like if you ride in extremely muddy conditions and so on it's all explained in that article so i'm afraid this video is already probably too long and i'm not sure how well i've explained this but the basic is to avoid cross chaining and to avoid putting too much pressure on the pedals when when pedaling to avoid cross-chaining you just have to mind how many uh to mind and to avoid using the innermost rear sprockets with the outermost front chainings and vice versa to avoid using the outermost cassette sprockets with the innermost front chaining and for those that have three chain rings up front for the mid training you'll use the middle section of the cassette so i could have made this video last only one minute but why not border to that i will put the the links on our video sections in in the timeline so you can so you can skip i hope this has at least helped someone that it's not too badly explained and thank you for watching and see you bye

Channel: BikeGremlin US

Views: 786,348

Keywords: bikegremlin, mostlyharmless, cycling, mechanics, shifting, 1x drivetrain, triple cranks, double cranks, derailleurs, shifters

Id: wfqbWDT749E

Length: 16min 56sec (1016 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 08 2021