Changing gears - best practices

albob

Hi all,
Apologies if this has been covered before. Might not have been using the right search options. I have a Ultega triple front, 10 speed rear. I know that this probably gives me about ~16 usable gears if I want to keep the chain reasonable straight (thats an uneducated guess - perhaps some advice there too?).
Anyway my main question is what is the best strategy for changing gears when going up a climb and you realise you need to drop a ring in the front. Ideally then I need to also switch to a bigger gear in the back to keep the same ratio going. This leads to a a lot of clanging of the chain/gears, and with the chain already stressed from the climb (along with the rider) it is probably not a good idea to do it all at the same time. However dropping the front ring first will lead to loss of momentum, while switching to a bigger gear on the back first will lead to a mini-heart attack and local rescue services! Any advice?
Hope all this makes sense.
As a bit of an aside, when changing my front gears (dont know proper term), nopt all switches are single SIS switches. For example to get from middle to largest ring requires a double SIS switch. Is this normal?
Thanks

Morgan

To keep the same ratio you'd switch to a smaller ring at the front and a smaller cog at the rear. Change the front first, then drop down a cog two at the back. Try to ease off the pedals a wee bit before shifting to make things smoother. Ideally you'd shift out of the big ring before things get really steep, but you don't always know what's ahead.

It's normal for your front shifter to click a couple of times when shifting gear this allows you to trim the rear mech a bit to avoid the chain rubbing.

showry

It's normal for your front shifter to click a couple of times when shifting gear this allows you to trim the rear mech a bit to avoid the chain rubbing.

Slightly off topic:
I was having to shift up and then shift down to move from the small ring back to the middle ring. I took it to the bike shop last week and they adjusted it so this shift is smoother but since then the chain seems to be rubbing more. I was probably better off with it the way it was was I? Would it be easy to get it back like that or should I just go to the shop again?

daymobrew

showry wrote: »

but since then the chain seems to be rubbing more. I was probably better off with it the way it was was I? Would it be easy to get it back like that or should I just go to the shop again?

It could be that your choice of rear cog is not ideal and therefore the chain is rubbing against the front derailleur (this guides the chain between front cogs).

You can read about front derailleur adjustments but it might be best to leave the adjustments to the bike shop if you are unsure about anything.

michaelm

Was at the foot of the Koppenberg on the Tour of Flanders two weeks ago and noticed that every rider was in his lowest gear before actually starting the climb - even though the gradient of the hill changes a few times they obviously didn't want to risk changing once they were on the hill - I would imagine the tension on the chain would make it very difficult to change when you are climbing a very steep hill.