| The joy of the mountain bike is that they come with | | | | granny gear. The second chain ring is for level, off |
| so many gears that, if you shift into the lowest one, | | | | road riding (2), and the third, or largest chain ring, is |
| you can ride up a mountain with no problem. It may | | | | good for riding on pavement. |
| take you all day, but you can do it. | | | | So if you want to use just those three gears, you can |
| It's been a long time since the "10-speed" bike was the | | | | certainly do so. But, using the right hand shifter, you can |
| ne plus ultra of biking sophistication when it came to | | | | take advantage of the increments of gears available |
| gears. These days, especially in mountain bikes, you | | | | to you. |
| can get anything up to 27 speeds. | | | | Rear Derailleur |
| What are all these gears in aid of? Quite simply, they | | | | The back chain ring is a cog set featuring seven, eight |
| allow you to pedal at the same cadence - regardless | | | | or nine cogs, depending on how many "speeds" you |
| of whether you're going uphill, downhill, or cross country. | | | | have (21, 24 or 27). Each cog is of a different size, and |
| However, the main reason why mountain bikes have | | | | again, the smaller size cogs will enable you to pedal |
| so many gears is to assist you in climbing up those | | | | very, very easily - but not go very fast, while the larger |
| mountains! | | | | size cogs will allow you to go further with each |
| The main thing to remember when shifting is that you | | | | downward stroke of the pedal. |
| must always shift while pedaling, otherwise you'll strip | | | | The best thing to do is to practice, practice, practice. |
| the gears. | | | | Take your bike to a parking lot or somewhere where |
| Front Derailleur | | | | you don't have to worry about people, and shift from |
| The gears are divided into two parts. There are three | | | | one gear to another, getting used to each one and |
| chain rings in the front, which are controlled by the left | | | | how easy or difficult it is to pedal while in that gear. |
| hand gear shifter. That's why there are 3 numbers to | | | | People new to biking might be rather wary of shifting |
| choose from on that gear shifter - to choose which of | | | | gears. Shifting always was a bit problematic during the |
| three front rings your chain will rest on. The "derailleur" | | | | "old days" - when one only had a pair of center |
| attached to the gear shifter moves the chain from one | | | | mounted levels to work with, but now gear shifters - |
| ring to another. | | | | the twist type - are so easy to use that there is no |
| When the chain is on the smallest of these three chain | | | | reason to be afraid of shifting. Again, as long as you're |
| rings (1), pedaling will be very easy. This is called the | | | | pedaling while you shift, you won't hurt the gears. |