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ENGLISH
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HOW THE COMPONENTS WORK
2. Adjusting the brakes
If any of the brake levers from your bicycle presents a mechanical failure in the safety inspection, you
can restore the displacement of the brake lever by turning the brake cable tensioner counter clockwise,
then lock the adjustment turning the nut tensor lock in a clockwise direction. If the lever still do not pass
the mechanic safety inspection, or want to know if the brakes are working properly, ask your dealer to
inspect the brakes.
D. GEARS
Your multi-speed bicycle will have a derailleur drivetrain, an internal gear hub drivetrain or, in some case
a combination of the two.
1. Why all these gears?
You’ll get more benefit from physical fitness, you will produce a larger and continuous power and have
greater endurance to learn to spin the pedals at high rotations per minute (called cadence) against a
mild resistance. You will get less benefit from physical fitness and will have less ability to endurance if
pressing the pedals against a heavy resistance.
The purpose of multiple gears on a bike is to let you choose the gear that allows you to maintain an opti-
mal cadence in various driving conditions. Depending on your level of fitness and experience (the higher
fitness, the higher the cadence), the optimal cadence is between 60 to 90 pedal rotations per minute.
2. How a derralleur drivetrain works
If your bicycle has a derailleur drivetrain, the gear-changing mechanism will have:
A rear cassette or freewheel sprocket cluster;
A rear derailleur;
Usually a front derailleur;
One or two shifters;
One, two or three front sprockets called chainrings;
A drive chain.
The number of possible gears combinations (“speeds”) is the result of multiplying the number of sprock-
ets on the cassete by the number of chainrings in front (6x2 =12 / 6x3=18 / 7x3=21 and so on).
There are many different types of gear mechanisms, each one designed for specific applications due to
its ergonomic features, efficiency and price.
Your bike designers have selected the design of the shifter that could present the best results on your
bike.
The vocabulary of shifting can be pretty confusing. A downshift is a shift to a “lower” or “slower” gear,
one which is easier to pedal. An upshift is a shift to a “higher” or “faster”, harder to pedal gear. What’s
confusing is that what’s happening at the front derailleur is the opposite of what’s happening at the
rear derailleur (for details, read the instructions on Shifting the Rear Derailleur and Shifting the Front
Derailleur below). For example, you can select a gear which will make pedalling easier on a hill (make a
downshift) in one of two ways: shift the chain down the gear “steps” to a smaller gear at the front, or
up the gear “steps” to a larger gear at the rear. So, at the rear gear cluster, what is called a downshift
looks like an upshift. The way to keep things straight is to remember that shifting the chain in towards
the centreline of the bike is for accelerating and climbing and is called a downshift. Moving the chain out
or away from the centreline of the bike is for speed and is called an upshift.
Whether upshifting or downshifting, the bicycle derailleur system design requires that the drive chain
be moving forward and be under at least some tension. A derailleur will shift only if you are pedalling
forward.
