Beginner's gear question

[OakLeaf]

It doesn't really matter where your duplications are, because you don't shift sequentially through all your gears anyway. Use the FD for large jumps, the RD to fine tune.

Let's say I've just crested a hill, and I'm in a pretty low gear. (Let's assume a double, for the sake of simplicity.) To maintain a steady cadence as I start to descend, I'll shift the RD one at a time until I'm at about #7 in back, then as I continue to pick up speed, I'll shift to the big ring, then shift to the smaller cogs (taller gears) in back if I need them.

So now I'm at the bottom of the hill and starting to climb the next one. I'll shift the RD one at a time to maintain my cadence until I'm at #4 or #5 in back. Then I'll shift back down to the small ring. Now at that point, depending on how steep the hill is, shifting the FD may have put me in a shorter gear than I want, so I may up-shift the rear by one. Then as I continue to climb, if I want shorter gears, I'll shift the RD one by one.

The point being, I'm not worrying about EXACTLY what gear development I'm getting at any particular time. I'm paying attention to my cadence and how my legs feel. So when I'm going up through the rear cogs, I'm going to be using more of them in the smaller ring, and when I'm going down, I'm going to be using more of them in the big ring.

Does that make sense, at all?

[Catrin]

The point being, I'm not worrying about EXACTLY what gear development I'm getting at any particular time. I'm paying attention to my cadence and how my legs feel. So when I'm going up through the rear cogs, I'm going to be using more of them in the smaller ring, and when I'm going down, I'm going to be using more of them in the big ring.

Does that make sense, at all?

Yes it does, and I think that I've been headed that way. I've a 9-speed rear cassette, so I try to shift the back into a gear that will give me some kind of resistance for the front gear that I am going to shift into. Does that make sense? I don't want to lose speed by suddenly being in too easy a gear when I shift the front - this is a very bad thing to happen when I climbing.

He did show me what he meant by the chain rubbing the chain-ring itself, but am not good at explaining it. I asked him about that today and he said it really only mattered for those gear combinations I shouldn't probably use very often so it didn't much matter in the long run.