How To Use Your Gears On A Bike: Beginner Series Ep. 3

How do I change gears? What gear should I use and when? If you’re asking these questions, then this is the video for you! Manon & Conor explain everything you need to know about bike gears and share a few top beginner tips to make changing gear when cycling feel easy!

0:00 Intro
0:50 The basics
1:51 How to change gear
3:10 What gear to use & when
4:12 Shifting on climbs
5:00 Right gear when stopping
5:40 Changing between chainrings

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Do you have any other top tips for using your gears? Let us know in the comments below! 💬

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[gcn]

Do you have any other top tips for using your gears? 👇

[thetechdog]

Since most beginner cyclists would be using mechanical shifting, perhaps a video using pivoting shifters would be more helpful than electronic buttons or paddles. Also, many beginners will have trigger or twist shifters. Given the focus on drop bar road bikes, maybe just a quick mention of other systems would be good. Otherwise, very helpful.

[laterreurrouge]

A tip for us beginners:
You can easily remember which lever sorts which gear/brake:

R - rear (rear gears/brake)
L - lead (front gear/brake)

[earlmcivor]

Great video. A bigger discussion on cadence and training with gears might be helpful too

[kmetz]

One trick I picked up recently that's to do with shifting is that when you shift in the front and your chain falls off, you can get your chain back on the chainring just by shifting back the other direction and doing another pedal stroke or two - the derailleur pulls the chain back on for you. For years when that happened I would just get off my bike and fix it with my hands (which results in some really black, greasy fingers for the rest of the ride).

This is a really nice series you've been doing here! I think a lot of beginners will find it useful - I'm pretty well versed in cycling by this point, but I've been watching to see if I can pick up any new little tidbits.

[ridealoha]

One thing you didn't mention is the "Trim" shift while in the big ring. Depending on your groupset level, some groupsets have a trim shift for the big ring. When you initially shift to the big ring, it is expected you will be in the top half of the cassette. If your not or when you downshift to lower half off the rear cassette, you need to trim shift to get the best performance and vice versa when going from the lower half to the upper half of the cassette. Electronic groupsets typically have a setting that will automatically make these adjustments while riding so you don't have to worry about it.

[daincrawford]

I can’t believe that you (GCN) have done this again. A beginner video on shifting and all you can scrounge up is a high end bike with Di2? Hank did a similar video a year a two ago and he had the exact same problem - Di2. When I bought my first modern road bike in 2011 with 105’s, I had to get on line and find a video on how to use the shifters. The one I found used mechanical shifters because that is what most “beginners” buy. The first time you shift from the small ring to the big ring takes a fair amount of effort and and a much greater push than one would expect. But you can’t share that because you are using Di2. I love you guys, but really, how can you be so clueless?

[julian_b]

I think it was a very bad idea using electronic gears in this episode. It was difficult to see what you were actually doing and which shifters to use when changing up or down gears.

[robinatter]

Thank you for the video. Just brought my first road bike cannondale synapse 2. Ok not as good as most you guys have but this video will help me on my first ride for sure.

[diezrosales]

Those tips were very helpful. thank you so much.

[steveb]

I really HAVE to start showing my smaller chainring a little more love - I'm WAY too often cross-chaining to my larger sprockets because I don't ENTIRELY trust my front derailleur (even though I've finally learned to set it up properly).

[neicyzworld]

Amazing video, I'm new to cycling and the gears have been a challenge for me.

[jacksonbangs]

I prefer lower gears for climbing so that I can spin more. Doing this helps me to climb during a century and double century ride. Great video.

[DavidMartin-tkfs]

I have just set up my son's little 3x9 triban3 road bike on the turbo trainer so he can get the idea of the gears before going out in the wild on it - to be fair he still needs to grown into it a bit 😅 In the mean time I want get him riding it with his meta Quest so he stops skipping leg day on bluddy gorilla tag.

There's a thought for a video:- full VR riding app reviews to get beginers/kids to engage with cycling who arent yet in a position to venture out.

His bike is microshift but the rule of thumb, which I had not twigged so thank you Manon and Connor, of small button for small cog, big one for big holds true and for an 8 year old that simple trick is pure gold!
👍👍👍👍

[JeremyPointer]

Just another tip... if you realize you forgot to change gears before stopping pull the front brake and push down on hoods to lift the rear wheel off the ground slightly and pedal and change gears as needed (easier with clipless)

[futurevisionagency]

With this video I understand it very well, but I need to go try and see how it works. Thanks for helping me ❤❤❤❤

[kvloover]

A more in depth guide on suggested gear ratio's and what to aim for might be helpfull as well.
I guess it depends alot of on different variables, but it might help some.

[AbderrahmenBesbes]

a beginner video with electronic shifting ... i don't think a beginner would use such high-end gear

[markproulx]

I would love to cycle where GCN does because there are never any cars about. I wouldn’t know what cycling was if it wasn’t a constant life-threatening experience.

[paulmagus]

really good advice and with practice the gear changing become intuiative as you feel the gradient and gear selection