Home > Learning Center > Bike Gear

Bike Gear

People who are serious about wanting to understand the inner workings of mountain bikes need to know how the bike gear shifting system works and know which components make up these gears.

The purpose of this article is to explain technically how a bike gear shift works. If you understand how a bike gear shift works, shifting gears will become more of an automatic thing for you as you ride and less of a complicated process that feels like it should be memorized.

The bike gear includes a crank that is bolted onto the bottom bracket and consists of three chain rings. These chain rings are bolted into the cranks and they come in three size ranges. They have a big ring, a middle ring and a small “granny” ring.

There are also sprockets and cogs that are found near the rear hub of the bike gear. Most of the more modern sprockets consist of around 7-9 size ranges. Typically the 7 and 9 speed sprockets have the same kinds of heavy and light bike gear. The biggest difference is found in the mid-range bike gear, which has more settings and a larger variety.

Understanding how a bike gear works can be beneficial to you when you are riding and trying to understand which gear to put the bike in. This is especially helpful if you are riding on mountains where the peaks and valleys require you to shift gears at regular intervals.