$@!#$@ what gear am i in?

[Pedal Wench]

i don't have downtube shifters, could you throw any other pointers my way?
I am reading the reviews on those Campagnolo computers aren't so good.

Mine was included with my eBay Colnago purchase - for free, it works well.

The ErgoBrain and the Shimano Flightdeck are supposedly the same computers, modified for Campy/Shimano differences. Both made by Cateye. At least this is what I've heard.

[mimitabby]

some of the reviewers sound like idiots, but i'm not much better when it comes to little electronic gadgets. Do all campy shifters have the little bumps?
(I never saw any bumps!)

[spokewench]

I'm old school, I started riding bikes before they had all these markings on shifters, etc.,etc. So, if you don't have them, you figure out a way to keep track of where you are. As you are aware crossing over is not good.

I've been riding so long that i'm not sure how I learned to do this or hardly how I do this, but let me give a stab at this.

so, say you have 10 gears in back and it sounds like you have a triple up front. (I'm lucky only two in front so I don't have to keep track of 3); just start thinking in sets of five. If you have gone to your small chain ring, you have most likely changed your rear cassette to a lower gear as well, so think if I'm down here, I have 1-3 (most probably, you could have 5 but this would defeat the whole purpose of this exercise) shifts before I go to another chain ring. Then go to the next ring. If you can been in most gears in back in the middle chain ring - there's a place you don't have to pay much attention and then when you are in your big chain ring the same applies as above. Pretty soon with practice, you will pretty much know what gears you are in or close enough.

My husband every once in a while catches me in a cross over even after 20 years of riding - it usually happens when I'm on a casual ride and I'm blabbing my mouth too much! Oh, well, who's perfect?

Hope this helps, but it is hard to remember how I know this stuff sometimes since it comes natural most of the time now, except of course, when I'm not paying the slightest attention to my bike!

[Bad JuJu]

When I started riding my first adult bike, I counted the teeth on each chainring and each rear sprocket, then made up a tiny three-columned chart (handwritten--it was the early 80s and I had never even used a computer), then taped it to my handlebar stem. Does the term "geek" come to mind here? Anyway, that helped me get used to what was where, and since I had downtube shifters, I was able eventually to get a feel for which position meant which gear and, thank goodness, get rid of the little chart.

Fast-forward to the 21st century. Now I have barend shifters, but I'm pretty much operating on feel, in the sense described by Spokewench and Lisa. I use the middle chainring for most flat riding and not-too-aggressive ups and downs, move down to the smallest chainring when the hills get too steep, and reach for the largest one when I'm flying downhill and want to keep spinning as long as possible to take advantage of that hill. Then I use the rear gears for fine-tuning, avoiding the crossover thing as much as possible, of course.

This works pretty well for me. I still do an ungraceful move sometimes when I'm reaching for an easier gear, but in general, I'm reasonably smooth for someone using barcons. And no more geeky little chart!