Which gear am I in?

Pete Connors said:

STI users must be familiar with a displayless situation so it is
obviously possible to get used to it, yes?

You'll just get used to it over time. It's a better way of doing things,
IMHO.

Simon Bennett said:

Pete Connors said:

STI users must be familiar with a displayless situation so it is
obviously possible to get used to it, yes?

You'll just get used to it over time. It's a better way of doing things,
IMHO.

I grew up on glancing down at the rear block to see what gear I'm in
(more important on friction shifters); still do with STI, even in the
middle of the night with a car behind to light things up. My road STI's
have little indicators on the cables but I hardly ever use them.

Pete Connors said:

Questions:
I am using RapidFire gear levers with their minimal indication of
which gear I am using. The displays take up too much handlebar real
estate for my liking so has anybody experience of using these with the
display covered? I believe that the FlightDeck computer usses this
option but I don't want a FlightDeck.
STI users must be familiar with a displayless situation so it is
obviously possible to get used to it, yes?

With Ergos but no ErgoBrain, I'm used to looking down between my legs at
the cassette. What people must think I'm looking at, I don't know! :-)

(Helps when I want to avoid cross-chaining or to change down to a certain
sprocket before stopping, etc).

Quoted message said:

I might try SRAM Attacks - anyone experienced the switch to these?

When I had a downtube selector in my youth, knowing which gear you
were in didn't seem to be important as it is now - but there were less
ratios when I were a lad and youth filled the gaps between the 'right'
gear and the others without too much effort.

With <= 12 gears, I always used to know what gear I was in by feel or
memory. I agree with you that's more need for a gear indicator when you
have more gears, especially when they're quite closely spaced. But I
wouldn't change shifters just to have an indicator (or better indicator),
unless they were better shifters altogether anyway.

~PB

MartinM said:

........................................................................... My road STI's
have little indicators on the cables but I hardly ever use them.

Hand signals are preferred. Oh is see what you mean now.

<Pete Connors> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Questions:
I am using RapidFire gear levers with their minimal indication of
which gear I am using.

There are only three gears you need worry about.

Too high -- change down
About right -- stay there
Too low -- change up

The trick is to stay in 'about right' regardless of hills, wind etc. You
may need to twiddle the levers to achieve this.

Indication of which of the three you are in -- yer legs.

Easy. Electronics free, reliable and calibrated to take account of bouts of
flu, a heavy night in the pub or six weeks training camp.

T

Quoted message said:

Too high -- change down
About right -- stay there
Too low -- change up

The trick is to stay in 'about right' regardless of hills, wind etc.
You may need to twiddle the levers to achieve this.

Indication of which of the three you are in -- yer legs.

Easy. Electronics free, reliable and calibrated to take account of
bouts of flu, a heavy night in the pub or six weeks training camp.

Yebbut the problem is knowing which lever to twiddle to hop into the gear
at exactly the right point. Get it wrong by twiddling the rear derailleur
to change up when you're already on the smallest cog and you've lost ooooh,
seconds! Might not seem much, but when you consider a certain chap got
some £our £igure wheels to add seconds to his time, you realise how much
some people value their seconds.

"Mark Thompson"
<pleasegivegenerously@warmmail*_turn_up_the_heat_to_reply*.com> wrote in
message news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

you realise how much some people value their seconds.

Depends how hungry I'm feeling :-)

cheers,
clive

Tony W said:

There are only three gears you need worry about.

Too high -- change down
About right -- stay there
Too low -- change up

But change what? Rear or front?

With a double or triple chainset, it helps to know what sprocket you're on
to avoid using the most crossed-over combinations. Also, you might want
to be ready to rapidly change up/down again soon, eg. when there's a major
change of gradient coming up . Being on one end of the cassette is not so
good then.

Most of the time you'll have a reasonable idea of what gear you're in (or
know exactly) without looking or having an indicator, but there are times
when it does help to have a glance, I find. My gear changing sometimes
goes a bit Pete on unlit roads at night! ...Especially when I've even
forgotton what chainring I'm on. A minor downside of 27-speed.

~PB

in message <[email hidden]>, Pete Connors <>

('') said:

Questions:
I am using RapidFire gear levers with their minimal indication of
which gear I am using. The displays take up too much handlebar real
estate for my liking so has anybody experience of using these with the
display covered? I believe that the FlightDeck computer usses this
option but I don't want a FlightDeck.
STI users must be familiar with a displayless situation so it is
obviously possible to get used to it, yes?

For heaven's sake, who ever needs to have indicators? Most of the time it
isn't in the least critical to know what gear you're in. When you do
need to know, a quick glance down will tell you. If you're not in the
right ratio, your legs will tell you.

My Ergobrain does tell me - not only which gear but what ratio. I almost
never look at that part of the display. Except for the sort of total
training geek I will never be, it's mostly irrelevant.

--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

For office use only. Please do not write or type below this line.

MSeries said:

MartinM said:

........................................................................... My road STI's
have little indicators on the cables but I hardly ever use them.

Hand signals are preferred. Oh is see what you mean now.

;-)
they are little sliding orange (FSVO nowadays) markers that slide up
and down the cables within a small see through graduated housing. Came
with the bike.

Pete Connors said:

Questions:
I am using RapidFire gear levers with their minimal indication of
which gear I am using. The displays take up too much handlebar real
estate for my liking so has anybody experience of using these with the
display covered?

In my case, with a set of the original Alivio (?) ones on my MTB, there
wasn't any indication to start with. A quick glance down tells me where
I am 1-8 which is okay for those occasions when I've lost track, but for
the most part I can remember whether I'm around the middle or one end of
the block and my legs tell me whether I want higher or lower.

It's not really a problem IME.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net [email hidden] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

MartinM said:

MSeries said:

MartinM said:

........................................................................... My road STI's
have little indicators on the cables but I hardly ever use them.

Hand signals are preferred. Oh is see what you mean now.

;-)
they are little sliding orange (FSVO nowadays) markers that slide up
and down the cables within a small see through graduated housing. Came
with the bike.

Not Campag then ?

Following on from Simon Brooke's message. . .

Quoted message said:

For heaven's sake, who ever needs to have indicators? Most of the time it
isn't in the least critical to know what gear you're in. When you do
need to know, a quick glance down will tell you. If you're not in the

Not at night.

Quoted message said:

right ratio, your legs will tell you.

You need to know your gears so you can plan ahead. eg Now would be a
good time to clonk down on the front and up at the back ready for the
possibility of a series of down adjustments in the traffic ahead.

--
PETER FOX Not the same since the bra business went bust
[email hidden]
www.eminent.demon.co.uk - Lots for cyclists

Peter Fox said:

You need to know your gears so you can plan ahead. eg Now would be a
good time to clonk down on the front and up at the back ready for the
possibility of a series of down adjustments in the traffic ahead.

Like the man said, a quick glance down is all you need if you're not
sure where you are.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net [email hidden] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

MSeries said:

MartinM said:

MSeries said:

MartinM wrote:

> ........................................................................... My road STI's
> have little indicators on the cables but I hardly ever use them.
>

Hand signals are preferred. Oh is see what you mean now.

;-)
they are little sliding orange (FSVO nowadays) markers that slide up
and down the cables within a small see through graduated housing. Came
with the bike.

Not Campag then ?

(spits) no, Shimano

Pete Biggs said:

With Ergos but no ErgoBrain, I'm used to looking down between my legs at
the cassette. What people must think I'm looking at, I don't know! :-)

(Helps when I want to avoid cross-chaining or to change down to a certain
sprocket before stopping, etc).

I've tried that but I am an old git and I can't really see the
cassette very well with varifocals and if I don't use them I can't
read the map! With an aging population Shimano will no doubt
eventually produce a head-up display...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I might try SRAM Attacks - anyone experienced the switch to these?

When I had a downtube selector in my youth, knowing which gear you
were in didn't seem to be important as it is now - but there were less
ratios when I were a lad and youth filled the gaps between the 'right'
gear and the others without too much effort.

With <= 12 gears, I always used to know what gear I was in by feel or
memory. I agree with you that's more need for a gear indicator when you
have more gears, especially when they're quite closely spaced. But I
wouldn't change shifters just to have an indicator (or better indicator),
unless they were better shifters altogether anyway.

My tourer has enough kit on the handlebars that I am looking for a
bit more handlebar space rather than a better indicator.
Years ago I could also tell what gear I was in from feeling the
downtube friction shifter but the RapidFire toggle action indexed
shift can sometimes leave me pretty vague about which bit of a 9-speed
cassette I am at.
Perhaps the answer lies in trying non-indexed shifters again. Then
again, the barbag only gets used when I'm stopped so removing that
might be the solution. Lots to fiddle with there 🙂
Thanks to everyone for the opinions!

Pete
--
Soup rarely tastes of what it looks like.
mono[losethis]treme@ntlw{andthis>orld.com

Pete Connors said:

I've tried that but I am an old git and I can't really see the
cassette very well

How well is "not well"? All you need to know is are you in about the
middle or well off to one side. The front ring is easier to see and
more to the point easier to remember.

Or get a Rohloff, when it's all linear and either up or down anyway...

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net [email hidden] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

Following on from Peter Clinch's message. . .

Quoted message said:

Peter Fox said:

You need to know your gears so you can plan ahead. eg Now would be a
good time to clonk down on the front and up at the back ready for the
possibility of a series of down adjustments in the traffic ahead.

Like the man said, a quick glance down is all you need if you're not
sure where you are.

And like I said : "Not at night". [Medical Physics eh? ]

Quoted message said:

Pete.

--
PETER FOX Not the same since submarine business went under
[email hidden]
2 Tees Close, Witham, Essex.
Gravity beer in Essex <http://www.eminent.demon.co.uk>

Peter Fox said:

And like I said : "Not at night". [Medical Physics eh? ]

Only time I can think of it being critical is doing Daft Off-Road, and
that's not that much an issue at night for most of us. If I can do it
without indicators (and I can) I doubt it's /that/ tricky a job.

[Quite empirical, a lot of this Medical Physics stuff...]

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net [email hidden] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/