{"id":165165,"date":"2018-06-04T12:26:14","date_gmt":"2018-06-04T12:26:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/?p=165165"},"modified":"2018-06-05T09:17:57","modified_gmt":"2018-06-05T09:17:57","slug":"4-top-tips-how-to-use-your-gears-efficiently","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2018\/06\/04\/4-top-tips-how-to-use-your-gears-efficiently\/","title":{"rendered":"4 Top Tips: How to Use Your Gears Efficiently"},"content":{"rendered":"

Regardless of how many gears you need<\/a><\/u>, there are some basic tips that will help save wear on your group-set – and improve your power input-to-output ratio. Here\u2019s some advice for beginners getting used to a wide choice of gears.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Change often and relax<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Find yourself a short circuit to practice your gear-shifting. Ideally, you want a circuit that has a few climbs and descents, as well as a variety of soft- and hard-angled corners. Practice shifting gears as often as possible to get yourself used to the amount of power you need to push the cranks.<\/p>\n

\n
\"how-many-gears-do-i-need\"\/<\/a><\/div>
\n Outdoor\/Mountain<\/a>\n <\/div>\n
\n \n

How Many Gears Do I Need?<\/span><\/h3>\n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n <\/article>\n<\/div>\n

Eventually, you want to complete each circuit at the same speed but for less effort. Or, you want to complete the circuit faster but with the same effort. To assess your progress, you\u2019ll need to be honest with yourself \u2013 or use a decent cycling computer that assesses your power output relative to your heart rate.<\/p>\n

Shift gears early and spin<\/strong><\/h2>\n

If you see a corner or an incline coming up, shift to a lower gear just before you get there. This is true of all geared vehicles, whether an F1 car, an articulated lorry, or your hybrid 10-speed on the commute. The sharper the corner or incline, the lower you should drop your gear.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/BhERevOgqD1\/?taken-by=wlcmagazine<\/p>\n

This allows you to reapply power as soon as you hit the apex of the corner, or inertia starts to kick in on the hill. A lower gear means greater leverage of power from your legs to the tarmac, and reduces the load-stress on the mechanics of your drive-chain and group-set.<\/p>\n

Avoid cross-chaining<\/strong><\/h2>\n

On both the rear cassette and front cranks, the highest gears are furthest away from the frame and the lowest nearest. Shift the crank-set to its highest gear and the rear cassette to the lowest gear and you\u2019ll notice the chain is stretched diagonally as per this video:<\/p>\n<\/lite-youtube>\n

This \u201ccross-chaining\u201d forces the links between the chains to rub more than they usually would and the result is friction, which you should avoid for two reasons. First, energy that generates heat isn\u2019t making you faster. Second, cross-chaining is filing down the teeth on your rear cassette and chain-set sprockets. This is both an inefficiency of watts and poor financial acumen.<\/p>\n

Cross-chaining shifts your rear derailleur to its most extreme forward and rear positions and wears the links in your chain causing “stretch”.\u00a0 You’ll spend more money replacing your drive chain\u2013 as well as reducing your power-efficiency.<\/p>\n

Clean gears, clean ride<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Having a range of gears is something of a responsibility. More gears should make your rides faster and more efficient – but the payoff is that you\u2019ll need to spend more time looking after them. So, give your drive-chain a quick clean<\/a><\/u> when the black muck starts to build up.<\/p>\n

\n
\"top-tips-take-care-gear-easy-steps\"\/<\/a><\/div>
\n Health & Training<\/a>\n <\/div>\n
\n \n

Top Tips: How to Take Care of Your Gear in Few Easy Steps<\/span><\/h3>\n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n <\/article>\n<\/div>\n

Not only will this make your shifting smoother and consistent, it will mean less trips to the bike shop to replace worn-out parts. And while we all love visiting our bike shop, isn\u2019t it more exciting to spend your money upgrading your bike rather than replacing worn parts?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Regardless of how many gears you need, there are some basic tips that will help save wear on your group-set […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":165167,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[328,329],"tags":[2017],"global-categories":[],"class_list":["post-165165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-outdoor-mountain","category-road-cycling","tag-how-to-use-your-gears"],"yoast_head":"\n4 Top Tips: How to Use Your Gears Efficiently - \u0160koda We Love Cycling<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Regardless of how many gears you need, there are some basic tips that will help save wear on your group-set - and improve your power input-to-output\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2018\/06\/04\/4-top-tips-how-to-use-your-gears-efficiently\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"4 Top Tips: How to Use Your Gears Efficiently\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Regardless of how many gears you need, there are some basic tips that will help save wear on your group-set - and improve your power input-to-output\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2018\/06\/04\/4-top-tips-how-to-use-your-gears-efficiently\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"\u0160koda We Love Cycling\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-06-04T12:26:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-06-05T09:17:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/d2p6e6u75xmxt8.cloudfront.net\/2\/2018\/06\/profimedia-0350408985-1.webp\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/webp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Frantiska Blazkova\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2018\/06\/04\/4-top-tips-how-to-use-your-gears-efficiently\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2018\/06\/04\/4-top-tips-how-to-use-your-gears-efficiently\/\",\"name\":\"4 Top Tips: How to Use Your Gears Efficiently - \u0160koda We Love Cycling\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2018\/06\/04\/4-top-tips-how-to-use-your-gears-efficiently\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2018\/06\/04\/4-top-tips-how-to-use-your-gears-efficiently\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/d2p6e6u75xmxt8.cloudfront.net\/2\/2018\/06\/profimedia-0350408985-1.webp\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-06-04T12:26:14+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-06-05T09:17:57+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"\"},\"description\":\"Regardless of how many gears you need, there are some basic tips that will help save wear on your group-set - and improve your power input-to-output\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2018\/06\/04\/4-top-tips-how-to-use-your-gears-efficiently\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2018\/06\/04\/4-top-tips-how-to-use-your-gears-efficiently\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2018\/06\/04\/4-top-tips-how-to-use-your-gears-efficiently\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/d2p6e6u75xmxt8.cloudfront.net\/2\/2018\/06\/profimedia-0350408985-1.webp\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/d2p6e6u75xmxt8.cloudfront.net\/2\/2018\/06\/profimedia-0350408985-1.webp\",\"width\":900,\"height\":600},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2018\/06\/04\/4-top-tips-how-to-use-your-gears-efficiently\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"4 Top Tips: How to Use Your Gears Efficiently\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/\",\"name\":\"\u0160koda We Love Cycling\",\"description\":\"\u0160koda We Love Cycling magazine\",\"alternateName\":\"\u0160koda WLC\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/author\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"4 Top Tips: How to Use Your Gears Efficiently - \u0160koda We Love Cycling","description":"Regardless of how many gears you need, there are some basic tips that will help save wear on your group-set - and improve your power input-to-output","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2018\/06\/04\/4-top-tips-how-to-use-your-gears-efficiently\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"4 Top Tips: How to Use Your Gears Efficiently","og_description":"Regardless of how many gears you need, there are some basic tips that will help save wear on your group-set - and improve your power input-to-output","og_url":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2018\/06\/04\/4-top-tips-how-to-use-your-gears-efficiently\/","og_site_name":"\u0160koda We Love Cycling","article_published_time":"2018-06-04T12:26:14+00:00","article_modified_time":"2018-06-05T09:17:57+00:00","og_image":[{"width":900,"height":600,"url":"https:\/\/d2p6e6u75xmxt8.cloudfront.net\/2\/2018\/06\/profimedia-0350408985-1.webp","type":"image\/webp"}],"twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Frantiska Blazkova","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2018\/06\/04\/4-top-tips-how-to-use-your-gears-efficiently\/","url":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2018\/06\/04\/4-top-tips-how-to-use-your-gears-efficiently\/","name":"4 Top Tips: How to Use Your Gears Efficiently - \u0160koda We Love Cycling","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2018\/06\/04\/4-top-tips-how-to-use-your-gears-efficiently\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2018\/06\/04\/4-top-tips-how-to-use-your-gears-efficiently\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/d2p6e6u75xmxt8.cloudfront.net\/2\/2018\/06\/profimedia-0350408985-1.webp","datePublished":"2018-06-04T12:26:14+00:00","dateModified":"2018-06-05T09:17:57+00:00","author":{"@id":""},"description":"Regardless of how many gears you need, there are some basic tips that will help save wear on your group-set - and improve your power input-to-output","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2018\/06\/04\/4-top-tips-how-to-use-your-gears-efficiently\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2018\/06\/04\/4-top-tips-how-to-use-your-gears-efficiently\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2018\/06\/04\/4-top-tips-how-to-use-your-gears-efficiently\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/d2p6e6u75xmxt8.cloudfront.net\/2\/2018\/06\/profimedia-0350408985-1.webp","contentUrl":"https:\/\/d2p6e6u75xmxt8.cloudfront.net\/2\/2018\/06\/profimedia-0350408985-1.webp","width":900,"height":600},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2018\/06\/04\/4-top-tips-how-to-use-your-gears-efficiently\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"4 Top Tips: How to Use Your Gears Efficiently"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/","name":"\u0160koda We Love Cycling","description":"\u0160koda We Love Cycling magazine","alternateName":"\u0160koda WLC","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"","url":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/author\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165165"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":165172,"href":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165165\/revisions\/165172"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165165"},{"taxonomy":"global-categories","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/global-categories?post=165165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}