I wanted to get into riding to lose some weight and get some sun, I went to a few bike stores and they said for going around/commuting in my smaller city that a hybrid would be great. I got this one for $300, and to be honest I don’t know anything about it, besides it had suspension and gears and whatnot. I feel like i’m doing a lot wrong tho, i’ve tried watching videos about shifting, and it sounds like it makes sense but I tried riding the bike and it was pedaling to fast with no speed which meant it was too low of a gear (I think?) and vice versa. I never found a good in between and I never picked up speed. Is it event possible to go fast on one of these???
If you guys have any helpful tips and or tricks that would be wonderful.
by notahellenkellerfan
2 Comments
Looks like you got a 3 by. That means 3 rings in the front and more in the back. My general strategy for those is to stay in the middle ring on the front as a default and use the rear gears for when I want to go slower or faster. Then just go into the little ring when I need to climb a hill or the big ring if I’m going down a hill.
You have it in the smallest gear upfront, and it looks really small, which will make all gearing light and slow.
With three gears up front go into the middle gear and in back put it in maybe the third smallest gear. That should be only a little heavy feeling and give okay speed. If still too slow, shift the front ring to the largest gear.
If that’s too heavy, in back now you can change to larger gears to soften how much force you need, or make it heavier for more speed.
Eventually you’ll figure out what ring you prefer staying in and when to change it, while the rear gears are what you should be changing most of the time.
Your saddle also looks very low, so once you get used to the gears you can check out calculating saddle height and proper mount and dismount when stopping.