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have less cornering and braking traction and can lock
up with less brake force. Moisture or dirt on the brake
pads reduces their ability to grip. The way to maintain
control on loose or wet surfaces is to go more slowly to
begin with.
D. Shifting Gears
Your multi-speed bicycle will have a derailleur
drivetrain (see 2. below), an internal gear hub drivetrain
(see 3. below) or, in some special cases, a combination
of the two.
1. How A Derailleur Drivetrain Works
If your bicycle has a derailleur drivetrain, the gear-
changing mechanism will have:
• a rear cassette or freewheel sprocket cluster
• a rear derailleur
• usually a front derailleur
• one or two shifters
• one, two or three front sprockets called chainrings
• a drive chain
a. Shifting Gears
There are several different types and styles of shifting
controls: levers, twist grips, triggers, combination shift/
brake controls, push-buttons, and so on. Ask your dealer
to explain the type of shifting controls that are on your
bike, and to show you how they work.
The vocabulary of shifting can be pretty confusing.
A downshift is a shift to a “lower” or “slower” gear, one
which is easier to pedal. An upshift is a shift to a “higher”
or “faster”, harder to pedal gear. What’s confusing is that
what’s happening at the front derailleur is the opposite of
what’s happening at the rear derailleur (for details, read
the instructions on Shifting the Rear Derailleur and Shifting
the Front Derailleur below). For example, you can select
a gear which will make pedaling easier on a hill (make a
downshift) in one of two ways: shift the chain down the
gear “steps” to a smaller gear at the front, or up the gear
“steps” to a larger gear at the rear. So, at the rear gear
cluster, what is called a downshift looks like an upshift.
The way to keep things straight is to remember that
shifting the chain in towards the centerline of the bike is
for accelerating and climbing and is called a downshift.
Moving the chain out or away from the centerline of the
bike is for speed and is called an upshift.
Whether upshifting or downshifting, the bicycle
derailleur system design requires that the drive chain be
moving forward and be under at least some tension. A
derailleur will shift only if you are pedaling forward.
!
CAUTION: Never move the shifter while pedaling
backward, nor pedal backwards immediately after
having moved the shifter. This could jam the chain and
cause serious damage to the bicycle.
b. Shifting The Rear Derailleur
The rear derailleur is controlled by the right shifter.
The function of the rear derailleur is to move the
drive chain from one gear sprocket to another. The
smaller sprockets on the gear cluster produce higher
gear ratios. Pedaling in the higher gears requires greater
pedaling effort, but takes you a greater distance with
each revolution of the pedal cranks. The larger sprockets