Can you be in the wrong gear?

rubez

Is there such a thing as the wrong gear?

Or the wrong combination of gears (of back cog and front chain ring)

I have heard of a... phenomenon, called cross over or cross gears or something - and you shouldn't be in this configuration.

I have never paid attention to my front and rear shifting habits... I guess shifting up the chain ring is a quick way of adding resistance.

Is there actually a wrong way of doing it, and what are the consequences?

markhewitt1978

It's called cross chaining, basically if your chain is at too steep an angle front to back then it can cause wear on the chain.

Assuming you have a triple then in general you avoid the smallest on the back when your on the smallest on the front, avoid extremes of the cassette on the middle ring and if on the big ring don't use the biggest cog at the back.

drlodge

Running small-small or big-big is cross chaining. Avoid it. You have plenty of gears, most of which overlap in their ratios so there is no need to use these gear combinations.

You won't have this problem if you are setting your front derailleur only to use the middle chainring.

BigAl

Can you be in the wrong gear? Yes, Lycra is wrong

cooldad

But it won't be an issue, will it?
viewtopic.php?f=10004&t=12969913

welshkev

cooldad wrote:

But it won't be an issue, will it?
viewtopic.php?f=10004&t=12969913

genius

drlodge

Indeed, the guy has a cracked freehub which he isn;'t bothered about "it'll be alright" and is worried about cross chaining :roll:

rubez

Stop being a troll... seriously :roll:

This is hypothetical and a curiosity.

I'm guessing you wouldn't find yourself cross chaining naturally, you would probably have to make a concerted effort to do so. i.e. against your subconscious/natural instinct.

Chunkers1980

Why?

Twelly

rubez wrote:

Stop being a troll... seriously :roll:

This is hypothetical and a curiosity.

I'm guessing you wouldn't find yourself cross chaining naturally, you would probably have to make a concerted effort to do so. i.e. against your subconscious/natural instinct.

Um actually people do it a lot. I have loaned my bikes out to family/friends that don't ride a lot and they all seem to forget to use the front mech, leave it in granny and rely on the cassette, which leads to small/small being used.

drlodge

rubez wrote:

Stop being a troll... seriously :roll:

This is hypothetical and a curiosity.

I'm guessing you wouldn't find yourself cross chaining naturally, you would probably have to make a concerted effort to do so. i.e. against your subconscious/natural instinct.

I always know what gear I'm in and so never cross-chain, unless I specifically make the decision to do so. Others might not be so concious of what gear they're in, or care about cross chaining (its just a chain) and so do it more often and less conciously.

Also, cross chaining isn't black and white. On my 11sp I try not to use the largest 3 sprockets while in the big chainring, but I will use the #3 and #2 sprockets sometimes but hardly ever go into #1 while on big chainring.

Dare I say, just apply common sense?

drlodge

TwellySmat wrote:

rubez wrote:

Stop being a troll... seriously :roll:

This is hypothetical and a curiosity.

I'm guessing you wouldn't find yourself cross chaining naturally, you would probably have to make a concerted effort to do so. i.e. against your subconscious/natural instinct.

Um actually people do it a lot. I have loaned my bikes out to family/friends that don't ride a lot and they all seem to forget to use the front mech, leave it in granny and rely on the cassette, which leads to small/small being used.

I see this quite a lot, and they're struggling to pedal, I want to shout at them to BL**DY USE THE GEARS!

snowster

So what about if you have a double chainring at the front?

Chunkers1980

Very extremes are still not great, but a lot better than a triple.

drlodge

My post above is in relation to a double chainring...

Ferrals

Obvious answer - spend a grand on xx1 !

Angus Young

rubez wrote:

Stop being a troll... seriously :roll:

Chunkers1980

drlodge wrote:

My post above is in relation to a double chainring...

Yes, on a road bike. Find your way back.

Giraffoto

rubez wrote:

This is hypothetical and a curiosity

Hypothetically, if a chain is sufficiently flexible for a 1 x 10 gear set up, it'll work perfectly well with all the sprockets from your middle chainring. If it's assumed to be at the very limit of its flexibility on middle/biggest or middle/smallest, then from the big chainring or the small one it should be able to reach all but one of the rear sprockets. It's unlikely that you'll find yourself doing this with a triple if you're applying a bit of thought to your gear changing. With a 2 x 10 arrangement, I'll occasionally do it if a hill unexpectedly gets steeper and the world hasn't ended yet.

felix.london

Been thinking about this as I'm thinking of making the switch from 2x10 to 1x10 but I'm gonna be spending an awful lot of time in my lowest gear (middle and 40t cog) - maybe 2hrs straight or more. Is this going to wear out my chain and/or cassette quicker than sitting and spinning in my lowest gear on my current 2x10 setup (granny and 34t cog)?

Chunkers1980

It won't be quite as striaghter chainline so will have more of an impact but not much to worry about. It will wear more in the fact that you don't have the range of gears where some are very close but actually different cogs.

JBA

rubez wrote:

I'm guessing you wouldn't find yourself cross chaining naturally, you would probably have to make a concerted effort to do so. i.e. against your subconscious/natural instinct.

Are you serious? Don't try and make this a deep-meaning psychological question.

People frequently don't know or don't care what gear they're in and cross-chaining is fairly common. Just watch people riding around the streets to see how often it occurs. There is no natural instinct to prevent it. :roll:

Cqc

Chunkers1980 wrote:

drlodge wrote:

My post above is in relation to a double chainring...

Yes, on a road bike. Find your way back.

Well said. We don't like your kind here...

ste_t

a) yes you can
b) are you a mental?
c) no, really, are you a mental?
d) I have nothing productive to say as I am dumbfounded by your sheer mentalism

Giraffoto

felix.london wrote:

Been thinking about this as I'm thinking of making the switch from 2x10 to 1x10 but I'm gonna be spending an awful lot of time in my lowest gear (middle and 40t cog) - maybe 2hrs straight or more. Is this going to wear out my chain and/or cassette quicker than sitting and spinning in my lowest gear on my current 2x10 setup (granny and 34t cog)?

Tricky one. My instinctive answer would be that if you have the same gear ratio but with larger sprockets fore and aft (so, 39 front and 42 rear rather than 24 front and 32 rear) then (1) your pedalling effort is distributed among more gear teeth, so you'll get less wear and (2) the tension in the top of the chain will be less, so you'll get less wear. If anyone can apply some mathemagic to this question, it might show that I'm completely wrong, however.

cooldad

Giraffoto wrote:

felix.london wrote:

Been thinking about this as I'm thinking of making the switch from 2x10 to 1x10 but I'm gonna be spending an awful lot of time in my lowest gear (middle and 40t cog) - maybe 2hrs straight or more. Is this going to wear out my chain and/or cassette quicker than sitting and spinning in my lowest gear on my current 2x10 setup (granny and 34t cog)?

Tricky one. My instinctive answer would be that if you have the same gear ratio but with larger sprockets fore and aft (so, 39 front and 42 rear rather than 24 front and 32 rear) then (1) your pedalling effort is distributed among more gear teeth, so you'll get less wear and (2) the tension in the top of the chain will be less, so you'll get less wear. If anyone can apply some mathemagic to this question, it might show that I'm completely wrong, however.

That makes sense to me.

markhewitt1978

JBA wrote:

People frequently don't know or don't care what gear they're in and cross-chaining is fairly common. Just watch people riding around the streets to see how often it occurs. There is no natural instinct to prevent it. :roll:

I quite often run big-big on my road bike, in fact it's probably my most regularly used gear!

Chunkers1980

But that's fine if a 2 ring setup

markhewitt1978

Chunkers1980 wrote:

But that's fine if a 2 ring setup

It's not actually, the angle on my chain is marked. But I'm aware of the consequences.

Maro

My boss complained to me about his chain rubbing the front mech sometimes, I sorted the gears for him and when checking them he pointed out that I had done a bad job as the chain rubbed when on big/big (triple). I explained that it's a gear he would rarely use and shouldn't use for the sake of chain wear and why would you be in that gear? He laughed and called me an idiot and proclaimed the chain shouldnt rub at all and that he uses that gear all the time. How do you tell a guy he's wrong and a fool without offending him?

cooldad

Tell him he's an idiot and if he disagrees, suggest if he wasn't he'd be able to sort out his bike himself.