Originally Posted by
Andy Stanton
I'm getting lost in the technical details but I've picked up enough to know that from now on I'm going to avoid gear settings 1-6 and 7 and 3-1 and 2. That's not going to be a big problem for me as I almost always ride in 2, usually in 2-7.
Thanks everyone for your input. This has been very educational for this novice bike rider.
Andy, when you have some spare time, I recomend some interesting reading in the Sheldon Brown stickies in the mechanics forum. Sheldon had a way of writing about technical details that made reading them fun as well as informative. If you like bikes, your going to enjoy many of his articles. Best of all, they are here and free.