Bill S said:If you get to the
max on the right shifter and you want to go further up or
down, shift the left side.
One other point: it all works better if the chain is relatively
straight...e.g. if the front gear is all the way to the right and the rear
gear is all the way to the left, it'll usually make a lot of chattering
noise and won't work very well. So if you on 1 on the left side (front
gears), you won't want to go past ~4 on the right side (that's the point
where you'd shift into gear 2 on the left). If you're on 3 on the left
side, you won't want to go below ~3 on the right. The middle gear in the
front can usually span the whole set of rear gears.
Gears may seem strange to anyone who's never driven a manual-transmission
car. Basically the smaller gears give you more power but less speed, and
the bigger gears give you more speed but less power. The ones in the front
make a huge difference, the ones in the back make a smaller difference. So
you'll start in front-1, rear-1; as you speed up you'll start increasing
the right gears until you're in front-1, rear-3 (or maybe 4), then shift
the front gear into 2 and start working the rear gears up; once its maxed
out you shift the front into the 'big ring' (3), and use the rear gears to
tweak the speed/power tradeoff. You shouldn't ever need to mash on the
pedals a lot - you'll get more power by shifting down into a gear where
you can more easily spin.
As Bill said, you get used to it quickly and its not long before you
hardly give it a thought.
--
-BB-
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