Gear system and chain
HP
Velotechnik
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Handling of the gear system
With the gear system you can adjust the
pedalling frequency, i.e. the number of revolu-
tions of the crank per minute, to the terrain
and the desired speed. Your pedalling fre-
quency should stay between 80–100 revolu-
tions per minute and not fall below 60 while
going uphill. If necessary consult your local
dealer and have him adapt the gear range to
your style of riding.
Your bicycle comes standard with a derailleur
gear or with an internal hub gear system. The
following section refers to the derailleur gear
system only. Please also refer to the manual of
the gear manufacturer.
You operate the gear changer with the grip
shifters or bar end shifters on the handlebars.
The right lever for the rear derailleur has an
index derailleur system that positions the
chain always on the chosen sprocket, so that
you don't have to "search" for the gears.
The left bar end shifter is not indexed so you
have to adjust the front derailleur while shift-
ing by slightly moving the shifter to stop the
front derailleur from dragging against the
chain while pedalling. Riding a recumbent
requires foresighted gear shifting. Before
stopping you should timely change to a low
gear to make it easy to start off again, without
having to pedal heavily.
You should only change the gears while you
keep pedalling, smoothly and without applying
great force, all the time that the chain is mov-
ing between the sprockets.
Attention!
Under no circumstances
allow the bicycle to roll back while chang-
ing the rear gears, or try to pull the bicycle
backwards when the gear shifter lever has
been moved, as this will damage the rear
derailleur.
Due to the long cables that expand under
pressure and the housing that compresses
under pressure it may be helpful for changing
gears quickly to turn the bar end shifter a
little bit farther than necessary to select a
gear and turn it back to the indexed position
once the chain has properly shifted ("over-
shift").
When the chain length has been properly
adjusted you can choose every combination of
front chainrings and rear sprockets to shift
gears. However, it is useful to ride the lowest
gears (the biggest rear sprocket) with the
smallest chainring, the middle gears with the
middle chainring and the highest (fastest)
gears with the biggest chainring.
The setup of the chainrings and sprockets
leads to an overlap of some gears. This means
that different combinations of chainrings and
sprockets can result in the same gear ratio. It
would be possible to arrange a gear system so
that double gears do not occur but this re-
quires a lot of concentration when you shift
gears while riding, since you will always have
to change the rear sprockets as well as the
front chainrings. If you would like to change
the setup of your gears please consult your
local dealer.
Danger!
Practice shifting gears on a
traffic-free street. In the course of this
make yourself familiar with the functioning
of the bar end shifters. Doing this in traffic
could distract your attention from possible
dangers.
Adjusting the gear system
Your dealer will adjust your derailleur gearing
system carefully before handing over the
bicycle. But during the first 300 kilometres
(186 miles) of riding the cables can stretch,
making the gear indexing imprecise. The chain
then climbs only hesitantly onto the next
sprocket.
Gear system and chain