How to shift my mountain bike?

Question

I have an 18 speed mountain bike. The shifters on the left are numbered 1-3 and the ones on the right 1-6. What gears do you use for going up big hills, and which are used for coasting

Answer 1

It's all about the size difference between two gears. You've got 3 big gears up front and 6 little gears in the back. Your shifters let you select which gears you want by moving the chain from one gear to another. The left shifter lets you select which front gear you want. The right shifter lets you select which back gear you want. Little gears up front combined with big gears in the back have a lot of power but aren't very fast. This is good for going up hills. Big gears up front combined with little gears in the back have a lot of speed but aren't very powerful. This is good for going downhill. Put everything in the middle as a starting place for riding on flat ground. Select different gears in the back to get more power or speed as you need it, depending on your terrain. When you run out of gears in the back, change the gears in the front.

This is very much simplified, but should get you started.

Answer 2

I'm not sure on the numbers, but I think that the front deraleur number (the left shifter), goes from 1 (smallest) to 3 (largest), and in the rear (right shifter), go from 1 (largest) to 6 (smallest).

If you look at your bike from the top, the lower numbers mean the clogs closest to the frame, and the largest numbers, the clogs further from the frame.

Let's say you're riding on a flat, even path. You could do something like, let's say, 2-4 (2 in front, 4 at the rear). This could let you do some nice cadence, and provide forward momentum. If you're starting up a hill, you want an easier to peddal gear ratio, so you could go up to 1-1, which is the easiest one, even if you go slow. Better to reach the top slow, that burn out fast early in the climb.

But say, at the top of the climb, if you get an even trail again, and you continue on 1-1, you will probably need to spin a lot to move at all, so that's not good. You would need more resistance and traction, so you could go back to 2-3 or 2-4.

Now, you make a u turn and go back down. Probably you could just ride downhill on any gear, bikes are not like cars, you can't use gearing to slow down. But, if you don't have a strong enough gearing, if you find that you need to peddal, you would probably need to raise your gear, to probably 3-4 or 3-5.

The front cogs make more difference between sizes, so going 1-1 or 2-1 will feel a lot more different than using 2-1 or 2-2. Think of using the front shifter to make big changes, and the rear just to adjust it a bit.

Also, don't cross the chain (crossing the chain means going big ring at the front-big ring at the rear, or small in front, small at the rear, or 1-6 or 3-1 in your bike).

Try to shift before a climb, not while your peddaling your bike as hard as you can.

Answer 3

Although I use a road bike, shifting is similar to any bike using a derailleur mechanism.

One thing to try to do is to keep your pedaling speed constant, downshifting when pedaling gets harder and up shifting when pedaling gets easier.

Gears and shifting depends on what sprockets are on the crank and on the rear wheel.

The shifter on the left controls which sprocket is used on the crank, and the one on the right controls which sprocket is used on the rear wheel. From what I can tell from what you wrote you have three sprockets on the crank and six on the rear wheel.

The gear ratio is the number of teeth on the crank sprocket divided by the number of teeth on the rear wheel sprocket. This means that a larger sprocket on the crank or smaller sprocket on the rear wheel will give a higher gear ratio. The higher the gear ratio the faster you go but the harder to pedal. This means that when you start out or are going up hill you want to use a lower gear ratio. Avoid using the largest crank sprocket with the largest rear wheel sprocket, or the smallest crank sprocket with the smallest rear wheel sprocket. This put unnecessary strain on the chain. (This means that your bike only has 16 speeds).

The derailleur mechanism requires that you must be pedaling with a reasonable speed. If you are pedaling slowly and it takes a lot of force to do so, shifting could damage the mechanism or the sprocket teeth. You can down shift while not on your bike by lifting the rear wheel (to allow it to spin freely) turning the crank and downshifting. Since I use toe clips, I can do this while stopped, lifting the rear wheel and turning the crank with my right foot, while standing on my left foot.

I do most of my shifting on the rear wheel sprockets, and I usually keep the crank on the center sprocket for most of my riding. I shift on the crank sprocket when I have gotten to or near the minimum or maximum on the rear wheel. Usually when I shift the crank I shift the opposite on the rear wheel simultaneously (i.e. go to the next larger sprocket on the crank and to next larger sprocket on the rear wheel).

This is how I do my shifting, but I would suggest that you experiment with what works beast for you.

Answer 4

Use low gears on up hills. And coasting you need no gears.

Answer 5

well push the levers and figgure it out. when it is easy to pedal then u can go up hill. the harder, the better for coasting.