siddartha

That's an excellent advice! I am going to follow it some time soon. Right now I am trying to minimise the volume of things I am going to move from one place to another. The thing is both English and French are second languages, but I feel far more at ease in English and also, some of the book I have on the subject are in English as well as most of the online texts. The sensible thing to do would be to adopt the French terms as I'm going to live here for a while and the country side is so much bike friendly than the UK. But although I have no problem using spoken French, or reading it, well, writing is a totally different thing. So I ended up favouring the English language.

As for the change of gears, it's the first geared bike I ever rode. So when I change the rear gears (7 in all) I hear a clank, clank. It's probably my lack of skill. Also, sometimes I have to rotate the gear shifter further away to get the result. On the front it's more problematic because not each time I change (3 gears in all) there is a result. Here, I can visually check, as there is no noise when the chain moves up or down the sprocket. It happens that I'm moving to the largest sprocket and the changer shows the 3, yet I can see the chain on the middle sprocket. Last night it is possible that I have rotated the shifter even further away from 3 to make it change and than there was a metalic noise and I felt I could not push further. And the pedal would come back if I take my feet off. As I had some speed I let the bike still go and this is where I have made the major mistake: I kept pushing my feet on the pedals to „make it better”. When I have stopped and went under a street light I have discovered the chain was stuck between the plastic shield next to my pedal and the largest sprocket. The look was impressive. The solution was simple: just unscrew the plastic disc from the large sprocket (four small phillips screws) and the chain was free. Pushed the rear derailleur towards the front wheel, fix the chain on the large sprocket and screw back the plastic disc. You guys probably can do this in your sleep. For me it was the first time to fix a bike.

I have noticed that, as I go on flat land with asphalt, using the 2nd front gear and the 4th rear gear just like with a fixed gear it's a good experience. I know I should have spent time using the brakes, than learn the gears, but the gears are far more spectacular.