Advanced Gears

During your ride, you want your bike to work FOR you as best it can in any situation. That includes your drivetrain. You need to have gears available for long steep climbs, technical obstacles and sprinting as well as all different types of normal trail riding. And you need to be able to switch in between gears quickly to meet the changing conditions of the terrain. If I come upon a fast hard-pack trail I like to jump into my big front ring, kick the pedals hard a few times and suddenly I have added several miles per hour to my speed. Or there are times when I come around a corner on a trail I am not familiar with and realize there is a big climb 'right there' and I didn't expect it, and I drop straight into my climbing gear. I can hit the gears I need in an instant and the transition is smooth. But did my drivetrain come this way? No,not even close.

In fact, I believe gear-sets are designed completely WRONG by manufacturers. So what do you do about it? The nice thing about modern mountain bike drivetrains is that they can generally be completely customized! How do you determine if you should start messing with them?

Here are some things to consider while on the trail.
* If you are pedaling at a pace faster than you would like to and decide to switch into the next gear, but it's a little too hard to pedal, then those two gears are said to be 'too far apart' as in the difference in number of teeth between the gears is too many.
* Say you want to speed up by several mph. You kick up in the gear you are currently in and then switch from the middle front ring to the larger front ring and the gear is 'too hard' to pedal. You have to drop 'back' a rear gear or two to be able to pedal in an effective manner. Your front rings are 'too far apart' as in the larger ring has too many more teeth than the middle ring.
* Ever notice there are certain gears you never use? Such as the easiest (most inner and larger ) and hardest (most outer and smaller) rear gears?

All these things can and should be changed to suit YOU, the rider. Here is how you do it.

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