Mountain Bike » Gears

Leather Made Motorcycle Riding Equipments

Admin — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 00:40:32 +0000

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Beginner Mountain Bike Skills

Admin — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 18:19:42 +0000

Mountain biking is an exciting sport that can be

enjoyed by anyone who knows how to ride a bike.

Compared to the average bike ride, it does present

some danger. Therefore, you should master these

basic skills before you hit the trails or the

dirt.

You can practice these beginning skills at a local

park, school, bike path, or simply around your

house. If you can, try to find a location with

a steep hill.

Get a feel for your pedals

Practice moving your foot away from the pedal,

first while sitting on your bike with one foot on

the ground. Next, move on to releasing and

replacing your foot while pedaling around for a

bit. Those with toe clip and clipless type foot

pedals will want to spend a bit more time

practicing.

Sit and spin for position

Simply sit on your bike and pedal around. You

should keep your arms slightly bent. You should

also adjust your seat height so your leg is 70 to

90 percent extended at the bottom of every stroke

on the pedal. Keep your body relaxed, as there

will never be a position where you should have

either your knees or your elbows locked.

Shifting gears

Get a feel for shifting gears with your bike. The

higher gears are harder to pedal and will go

faster while the lower gears are easier to pedal

and will help you ascend hills. As you get to

steeper hills, its best to shift before you get

to the hill rather than while your on it.

Coasting

You should spend a bit of time coasting while

standing on your pedals, without actually sitting

on the seat. Keep your arms bent but don’t lock

your knees. Now, try experimenting with shifting

your body towards the rear end of the bike.

Pedal while standing

You should get as comfortable as you can with

pedaling while standing on your bike. Try lifting

yourself off the seat while standing on the pedals,

then crank them around. You should try this in

higher gears on flat ground then again in lower

gears while on a hill.

Dropping down a curb

Try finding a curb where you can easily get to the

upper portion of it. Practice at a moderate speed,

standing and coasting right off the curb from the

upper level to the lower level. Try this at

different speeds until it becomes second nature.

Once you practice these techniques and get the

hang of them, you’ll be able to hit the trails feeling

comfortable on your mountain bike. Even though it

may take some getting used to, it’ll become second

nature before you know it.

Tips To Understanding The Basics Of Mountain Bike Gears And How They Work

Admin — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 22:12:44 +0000

Remember when you didn’t think about the gears on your bike? Your bike had a bike sprocket connected to the pedals and a small sprocket connected to the back wheel an that’s all you needed. Then you got a little older and got your first 10-speed. That bike had two sprockets up front and five on the back. In all likelihood, the shifters were a pair of levers connected to your bike frame near the handlebars. As time went on the shifters moved to the handlebars themselves and then became advanced-looking dials right beside the grips. And next thing you knew, instead of a paltry ten speeds on your bike, you were riding a 27-speed mountain climbing machine!
Why all these gears? To make riding faster and easier, of course. Whatever the number of gears your bike has, if it has 2 or more then there’s a basic set-up which almost every bike employs.
First of all you have your front and rear sprockets. These, along with the chain, form the most basic components of the gearing system. To determine your gear ratio you compare the number of teeth on the front sprocket to the number of teeth on the rear sprocket.
If your front sprocket has 52 teeth, and your rear sprocket has 20 teeth, then you’re looking at a ratio of 2. 6. The higher the ratio the faster the gear. Typically the gears on the front, starting from the inside, get larger as you move out. On the back wheel, though, the largest gear is typically the farthest inside and they get smaller as you move out.
The next key component for your mountain bikes gears is the derailleur, or derailer. The derailleur is what moves the bicycle chain from gear to gear. A typical shifting system employs both a front and rear derailleur. Without the derailleur you wouldn’t be able to shift gears. The derailleur consists of pulleys and the cage, which is the part which actually comes into contact with the chain. The pulleys are attached to the gear cables. There are separate cables for the front and rear derailleurs. The gear cables connect to the gear shifters.
There are a variety of gear shifters available today and they cover a wide price range. The gear shifter is what allows you to change gears. The first type of shifters were levers known as friction shifters. These worked simply by pulling the cables attached to the derailleurs.
Friction shifters can be troubling because the way they’re designed you can easily get caught between gears and accidentally damage your gears or even wreck. The more advanced variety of shifter is known as the index shifter.
Index shifters have specific stopping points and are calibrated to perfectly shift from gear to gear. They remedy the drawbacks of the older friction shifters. Gear shifters may be placed anywhere from the frame to the handlebar base to the grips to models which seem to be part of the brake levers.
Mountain bikes have multiple gears to make it easier for you to negotiate difficult terrain. Higher gears are there to help you speed downhill or across the flats, and lower gears are there to help you surmount those difficult inclines. Remember, it’s best to shift gears when you’re not putting a lot of stress on your pedals. Shifting when there’s heavy pressure on the pedals can damage your shifting system.

The Intricacies Of Mountain Bike Gears

Admin — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 20:30:43 +0000

When you choose mountain bike, it is a good idea to learn more about the gearing systems. This article will explain more about how those systems work. Mountain bike gears are continually becoming more and more complicated and intricate. Today’s bikes can come with up to 27 gear ratios. It is common for a mountain bike today to use nine gears in the back and three sprockets of different sizes in the front for gear ration production. Why so many gears? The most common reason is that a large number of gears allow a rider to pedal at the same pace no matter what terrain that he/she is on. This can be understood better if you think about a bike that just has one gear. Every time you turn the pedals one full turn, then the rear wheel also turns one full turn, too (1:1 gear ratio). For example, your back wheel is measured at 26 inches. If you pedal one full turn, then this would mean that your wheel moved 81. 6 inches. If you are riding at 50 RPM, then you will be able to go 340 feet per minute. This means that you were going 3. 8MPH, which is equivalent to walking speed. This speed is great for going up a hill that is steep, but it is not a good speed for flat ground or racing downhill. If you want your bike to go quicker, then you will need a different ratio. If you want to reach a speed of 25 MPH downhill using a 50-RPM cadence, then you will need to have a 5. 6:1 gear ration. If you have lots of gears on your bike, then you will be able to get that ratio so that you can continue your pedaling at a consistent pace, no matter what terrain you are on or what your speed is. A typical mountain bike that has 27 gears will have six gears so incrementally close to the other that you will not be able to determine that there is any difference between the gears when you change them. Most mountain bike riders decide to choose a gear system with a front socket that is suitable for the slope or terrain that they usually ride on and they stay with this choice, even though it may be more difficult under a heavy load to shift the gears. This is purely a personal decision, but it is simpler to shift between gears when the rear socket, rather than the front one. When you are pedaling uphill, then you will find that it is much better to choose a sprocket that is smaller on the front and then shift gears with the nine gears that are available on the rear. If you are more speeds on the rear sprocket, then you will find that it is much more efficient to ride. Mountain biking needs gears so that you can keep an overall speed going. If you didn’t have gears, then you would find it difficult to build up any speed and you would find it nearly impossible to pound your pedals for extra control. Gears help to move the pedals and enable you to gain that speed.

How Mountain Bike Gears Work

Admin — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 14:31:26 +0000

The gears in mountain bikes just keep getting more and more intricate. The bikes of today have as many as 27 gear ratios. A mountain bike will use a combination of three different sized sprockets in front and nine in the back to produce gear ratios.
The idea behind all these gears is to allow the rider to crank the pedals at a constant pace no matter what kind of slope the bike is on. You can understand this better by picturing a bike with just a single gear. Each time you rotate the pedals one turn, the rear wheel would rotate one turn as well (1:1 gear ratio).
If the rear wheel is 26 inches in diameter, then with 1:1 gearing, one full twist on the pedals would result in the wheel covering 81. 6 inches of ground. If you are pedaling at a speed of 50 RPM, this means that the bike can cover over 340 feet of ground per minute. This is only 3. 8 MPH, which is the equivalence of walking speed. This is ideal for climbing a steep hill, although bad for ground or going downhill.
To go faster you’ll need a different ratio. To ride downhill at 25 MPH with a 50 RPM cadence at the pedals, you’ll need a 5. 6:1 gear ratio. A bike with a lot of gears will give you a large number of increments between a 1:1 gear ratio and a 6. 5:1 gear ratio so that you can always pedal at 50 RPM, no matter how fast you are actually going.
On a normal 27 speed mountain bike, six of the gear ratios are so close to each other that you can’t notice any difference between them.
With actual use, bike riders tend to choose a front sprocket suitable for the slope they are riding on and stick with it, although the front sprocket can be difficult to shift under heavy load. It’s much easier to shit between the gears on the rear.
If you are cranking up a hill, it’s best to choose the smallest sprocket on the front then shift between the nine gears available on the rear. The more speeds you have on the back sprocket, the bigger advantage you’ll have.
All in all, gears are very important to mountain bikes as they dictate your overall speed. Without gears you wouldn’t be able to build speed nor would you be able to pound pedals. The gears will move the pedals and help you build up speed.
There are all types of gears available in mountain bikes, all of which will help you build up a lot of momentum if you use them the right way.