So... I bought a new Specialized Secteur on Friday. I'm a beginner, and I took the bike around the quiet residential block just now. I realised I have no clue how the gears work. The guy at the store tried to explain it to me, but none of it made any sense.

There are two gear levers... the one on the right taps towards the centre, and the one on the left kinda moves toward me, but doesn't appear to move in like the other...

When I played with the gears, they seem to have no effect. Peddling feels the same. I remember that when I was a kid too. Can someone point me to a good article on how to use gears? - Doug.

Did an owner's manual come with the new bike? It should include instructions and basic maintenance.

Do you know if the chain actually changes to different sprockets?

You're not really supposed to try and change gears while not pedaling so don't just go out to your garage and fiddle around with it, unless you hoist up the rear wheel and spin the cranks to make the chain move while you try to shift.

Each shifter should work TWO ways. The left controls the front derailleur and sprockets, the right controls the rear. Each shifter should click one way to make the chain go to a larger sprocket, and should click another way to make the chain go down to a smaller one. Maybe you just put it in top or bottom gear and aren't clicking back? I am not saying to push the same lever in a different direction; read on please.

I think your Specialized has Shimano shifters like my bike. If they or the derailleurs say Sora, then there is a little thumb lever sticking out the side-that's how you go to smaller sprockets, on both the front and the back. You go to bigger sprockets by actually pushing the brake lever itself sideways instead of pulling it back as if to stop. Remember, don't try it unless you're pedaling.

If your derailleurs say Tiagra or 105, or possibly Ultegra, then there is a shift lever behind the brake lever which causes the derailleur to go to a smaller sprocket. You also push the brake lever itself sideways to go to a larger sprocket.

If you told us which system you have, one of us could surely make it a lot clearer.

Go back to the shop, and find someone else to explain it. If you think it is confusing in person, over the internet will be more confusing. You bought the bike from them, they owe you clarity on how it works.

If you want to start learning basic bike nomenclature, spend some time on the Sheldon Brown and Park Tool sites.

I bought that very same bike earlier this year and have put on about 1400 miles so far. The shifting was noisy and clunky for the first few hundred miles as shifting cables stretched and settled in. After a tune up at the bike shop at that point and then learning about the shifters and additional tweaking on my own, everything runs very smoothly and quietly. It also helps, I believe, to soft peddle as you shift. You can go up or down several clicks at a time. As said above, get the bike shop to provide some instruction.

The stock tires, while giving a smooth ride, began to wear out quickly. I bought 28mm tires and a new wheel set to provide a softer ride to deal with a troublesome back. At this point the bike is exactly what I was looking for but learn how to tweak and adjust things. It is actually very relaxing to tinker with the bike.

"I realised I have no clue how the gears work" <-- i don't want to sound rude but you can't figure it out yourself either? I bet you know how a vcr, a dvd player and a nintendo wii works right out of the box w/o reading the manuals for sure. Figure it out how shifters work is not rocket science you know, besides if you comeback to the store the guys will think that you are a little bit "SLOW," to say the least, and will be embarrassing for you. Maybe that's why you are asking here...

Again, i didn't want to sound disrespectful neither rude ok? Just sit there with the darn bike and play with it, besides if you figure it out yourself, you wont forget. Just go to the parking lot start pedaling and move the shifters up and down you will see what is going on right away for sure

I don't know your specific bike, but the general principles apply:

Left shifter = front gears (chainrings) = general gear range (High, Low with 2 chainrings) or (High, Medium, Low with 3)
Right shifter = back gears (cogs) = 'fine tuning' gears within general range

Big chainring, small cog = highest gear
Small chainring, big cog = lowest gear

Experiment with your right shifter, then your left. Once you get the hang of it you'll want to avoid certain inefficient combinations (big chainring, big cog; small chainring, small cog).

Good luck, have fun!

It almost sounds like the left one is broken. They should be mirror images of each other.

Thanks everyone. I'll go back and read the manual again, and see if I can work it out. I'm also going to go back to the store and make them make me understand it.

ultraman6970: You did come off as rude. Pressing either gear doesn't seem to actually do anything. There's no click, resistance, noise, OR apparent effect on the peddling. I'm not actually even sure that I am changing gears. I fail to see how that makes me SLOW.

Push the brake levers inward. That's how to make it shift the other way. You've ratcheted the derailleurs as far as they'll go in one direction. Just don't do it without pedaling b/c it's bad for the bike to shift without pedaling.

Gears are ratios, Ratios are math.

a number, the tooth count on the front, divided by the back count.
a ratio proportional to the number of teeth on the front,
turning the one in back a number of times . how many determined by how many teeth on the gear-cog on the back..

simple example a 48 tooth turns a 24 tooth twice for one rotation of the larger
2:1 ratio 48:12 is 4:1


a 24 tooth front gear turns a 34 tooth rear gear less than once,
an 0.7:1 ratio .. that is a nice low gear

race bike high gear a 53:12 is 4.416 rotations of the back wheel for one crank rotation ..

garage sale GT: The levers only seem to go one way. And, it's kind of hard to explain, but the only on the left only seems to move backward (when sitting on the bike), while the right one only seems to go inward (or was it outward, I can't quite remember).

fietsbob: How can I even tell what gear I am in? I mean, it's not like there's a digital display or anything. If you don't know what gear your currently in, how do you know what you need to change it to?

According to the Specialized website, the gears are 'Shimano 105'. I don't if that also tells anyone how the shifters themselves are supposed to work.

I have 105.

The paddles just behind the brake levers should move the chain from bigger to smaller sprockets. The left one for the front, the right one for the rear.

To go from smaller to bigger sprockets, you have to push the brake levers themselves inward. The right controls the rear gears, the left controls the front.

It's hard to tell exactly what's going on. The small paddles behind the shift levers should feel pretty firm and give a loud click. If they feel like they move too freely and don't click, you've gone as far as you can go and need to shift back the other way by pushing that whole brake lever inward. Again, don't shift when the chain's not actually moving.

Shift levers. Shimano 105.... And... click?I haven't gotten them to click. If there was a click or something I might have a clue I was actually shifting gears.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOaMTos6ScA

Nerull: Thanks. Watched that, and then took a look at my bike. It's different. The whole brake lever doesn't move left/right like that in the video. I have the smaller levers, as they had in the video, and that's all that moves.

Do they say anything?

If the levers don't move, you don't have 105. Or any other Shimano road group that I'm aware of.

Push harder. See how the bike tech is turning the cranks by hand as he shifts-if you don't do that, the chain's got no place to go and won't allow the bike to shift easily. You need to be pedaling when you try to shift.

The whole lever shouldn't move left and right. Each lever should be able to move inward only. The small lever should also only be able to move inward.

Hmmm.... back to the store tomorrow for me. The guy at the store didn't show me that the brake lever would move sideways like that. All he played with was the smaller lever, and that's all I've played with, and it doesn't seem to do much. It sure doesn't CLICK like the brake lever does in the video. I gave it a little budge just now, but it seemed to be fixed. I'll ask at the store. Thanks.

It is likely you are shifted all the way in one direction, and thus the paddle cannot move any further. Moving the lever shifts in the opposite direction.

DIY? heres a math calculator, project , make a chart,

count the teeth on the crankset chainrings. and count the teeth
on each cog on the rear wheel .. old math put the tooth numbers on a grid .

one vertical line on the side, the chainring tooth numbers (A),
across the top write the cog tooth count (B).

and divide A by B, and write it in the block on the chainring line , under the cog number..

old standard way of speaking of what gear you are in , is to just say what the tooth counts are.
48 /12 , 52 /14, 36 / 22 , , 42/20, and so forth...

1, 2 , 3 , 4 .. is not really applicable to a derailleur bike because you may have 2 cog/chainring proportions
that may describe the same ratio ... gear redundancys ..

The Late Sheldon Brown and friends worked out a computer calculator program

https://sheldonbrown.com/gears/ and https://sheldonbrown.com/gears/internal.html

...I did something like this with an Excel spreadsheet (when I tried to insert the Excel file, it got flagged as 'invalid' so I made a jpeg copy of it using Paint)...this was on my 'Frankenbike'. I set up rows for the 21 different chainring and sprocket combinations and entered the different tooth counts into each row (the 'Front' and 'Rear' columns). I then set up the 'Ratio' column to calculate the ratios to two decimal places, then set up the 'Gear' column (in/rev) and 'm/rev' columns to calculate those values based on wheel circumference in inches and meters. Then I sorted the rows based on the Ratio column, lowest to highest, and Excel automatically rearranged the data in the other columns accordingly. I even created a little line graph of the ratios and m/rev values...added some info about the components...and here is the result: (click on the thumbnail to enlarge)

AllVit54: Your way ahead of me...

Anyway, I'm not sure if I should be laughing or crying. After watching the youtube video that someone posted, I went back to the store today and the guy there did the same thing where he moved the brake lever inwards to change gears. I took the bike for a spin tonight and tried to replicate that, and the levers just do not budge. They do not move inwards. I don't know why this is so hard.

I did get the change to chain position by pushing the smaller tab on the right inwards (yay!), but the left tab never quite clicked... it feels sort of gummy, and the fact that it moves forwards and backwards in addition to left and right is just plain confusing.

Why can't Specialized put directions on how to change gears in their owners booklet? I mean come on.... I'll take the bike back to the store tomorrow.

Doug

Have the shop put YOUR bike on a trainer, and have YOU ride it and shift it in the shop. Either it works, or it doesn't. A couple of minutes on a trainer and you will know.