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| *Vultures Knob>>>Mountain Bike |
Can you explain to me the levels of gears in a mountain bike?? |
bit confused cause i got 2 gears front and back...dont know what does the front do....the back is for riding a mountain right?? I'm guessing that you have three gears in front and anywhere from 6 to 9 gears in the back, correct? The gearing system is set up so you can put forth a similar effort no matter if you are going fast, slow, on flat ground or going up a hill. The easiest gear is the small ring in the front and the large ring in the back. Conversely the hardest gear is the large ring in the front and the small ring in the back. When using gears most people will leave the front derailleur in the middle position and go up and down the rear cassette to make riding harder or easier. If you are all the way in the smallest ring in the back and need to make it harder, move the front into the largest ring. The same goes if you are in the largest gear in the back and it is too hard, move the front into the smaller ring. One thing that you need to watch out for is "cross-chaining". This is when you are in both big rings or both little rings. You should avoid riding your bike in this position because it puts a lot of strain on your chain, and it could even break. For example, if you are in both big rings, it is more efficient to move down into the middle gear in the front and move up to a smaller ring in the back for a similar gear. Over time, your gears will make sense. If you are pedalling very hard, change gears. If the pedaling is very easy and your legs are spinning around but really not going anywhere, change gears. For practice, just ride around the block or find a nice parking lot and see how changing the gears affects how hard or easy it is to pedal. Good luck! The gears in front are just more options for different gear ratios. In general the smaller chainring will give you a lower gear for hill climbing, the larger will give you higher gears for riding the flats or downhill. For most part, CM has it right. Where I digress is leaving the front on the middle ring. Let's say we number the gears, and you have 3 gears in front and 8 at the rear. Let's number the front gear 1 to 3, where 1 is the inner gear (smallest), and gear 3 is the outer (largest). On the rear, number 1 is the inner gear (largest in this case), and number 8 is the outer (smallest). If you're running on 1F-1R, you're going to spin easily on climbs, but you will spin like a bear at a circus on level or downhill sections. Running 3F-8R would be when you're going fast downhill, it provides lot of traction, but is hard to move. running 2F-4R would be for level terrain or slightly descents. Most mountain bikers won't use the largest front gear, and some replace it for a bash guard. I use it very seldom. Now, about crossing your chain, running big-big (1F-8R) or small-small (1F-8R) must be avoided. Usually, bike manufacturers sells bike as 21, 24 or 27 speed, but you can't use all of them, if you have a 3 ring front, 9 ring rear you can use probably like 12 gears (and they will provide all the gearing you need). So, when you're on the small ring in front (1F), you can use (1-4R), and when you're on the second one in front (2F), you can go from (3R-6R), and on the largest one (3F), you would use (4-8R). Think of the front gear as the mayor area, and the rear is for minor changes. Change gear only when you're peddaling, but not when you're applying maximum torque on the pedals (like climbing). Try to anticipate the shift so that when you enter a climb you're already in the right gear. If you must shift during a climb, before shifting get some speed, and then smooth your pedaling and shift, and then return to normal peddaling. |
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