The gears on the inside (the ones closer the center of the bike) are your low speed gears. You should shift into these just before coming to a stop or just before starting to climb a hill.

The gears towards the outside are your high speed gears. As you gain speed you work your way up into these.

When it comes to riding around town the goal is to move efficiently with a minimum of wear and tear on the bike and you!

If you find yourself standing up to pedal your are in the wrong gear. Putting your full weight into cranking those pedals is hard on the bike, hard on your knees, and when eventually some part of your drive train suddenly, violently fails you will probably lose control of your bike and get hurt. I’ve seen people literally break their faces when this happens. If your bike has multiple speeds you should use them!

What gear should you be in? Whichever gear lets you comfortable stay in the saddle and does not force you chain to run at an extreme angle. That is called “cross-chaining”. It refers to when your chain is in a gear combination that runs the chain very diagonal increasing friction, wearing your components faster.

Assuming that you are starting off in your lowest gear (i.e. your chain is towards the insideas in the picture) you start pedaling as you get up into the saddle.

Spin those pedals until your feet are spinning just a little faster than you would prefer. Now it is time to shift.

First shift the rear derailleur (that should be the shifter on the right).

While shifting you should not press hard on the pedals. Spin them gently! Once you feel the shift happen then go ahead and press hard. (Note that some modern drive trains are designed to shift even when under full power. This assumes that the drive train is in good condition and well maintained. It is a feature intended for racing. For day to day transportation your drive train will last longer if you shift it gently)

Now if you have the room to continue gaining speed you’ll eventually need to shift again. Shift the rear derailleur again while spinning gently. Continue the process until you get near the center of the rear gears.

For example if you have an old school 10 speed, your rear gear cluster has five gears and the center is gear three. Now, still using the 10 speed as an example, you’re ready to shift your FRONT dérailleur. It’s the same procedure as the rear you just use the other lever. Once your up in the big ring up front keep pedaling and for your next shift you’ll go back to your rear dérailleur and continue with it till your chain is all the way to the outside.

Now you’re in your top gear. If you’ve got enough room its time to haul ass!

The previous example used a bicycle with only two rings up front. What if you have three rings like many modern bikes? Well you should just divide your rear sprockets into thirds. Then shift through one third of your gears on the rear, then shift the front, another third of the rear, then out to your third front ring, then shift the back all the way out.

This is a simplified explanation. It is intended as a general guideline for shifting safely, smoothly, and prolonging the life span of your drive train.

To see it in action watch this video:

In the world of bicycles, theft is all too common, and the only thing any of us can do is make it more trouble to steal your bike than it’s worth.

There are three basic types of locks when it comes to bike security: Cables, Chains, and U-Locks.

Cables and light weight chains are very low security. With the right tool you can chop through these in less than a second.

They are really only useful if:
1. Your bike is not worth much and

2. You never leave it unattended for long.

The upside is that they usually don’t weigh much, often cheap, and are compact. If long enough they can be locked to a wide variety of items.

U-Locks are good all around locks. They are usually not too heavy relatively compact and pretty strong.

Heavy Duty Chains are super tough and if long enough will let you lock up to a variety of items. They are unfortunately very heavy and bulky.

Here is the thing: No matter how tough a lock is with the right tools it can be broken. Even if they can’t break the lock, maybe they can break whatever the bike is locked to.

If your bike is your main transportation you can’t afford to have it stolen. Here is a winning strategy:

Flashy bikes get stolen. Unless you have secure places to park it at every destination do not use a brand new high end bike as your main commuter!

Cables are nearly useless if your bike is important to you. Next time your next to a bunch of parked bikes look at all the shiny new bikes locked up with cable locks and other light duty locks. Those are the bikes that will end up on bikeportland.org in the stolen listings!

My advice: Get a quality u-lock!

They are the best all around lock. Assuming that your bicycle is not too “flashy”  and locked to something secure they are too difficult for the average thief to defeat. They will go find something easier to steal. For added security you may want to replace any quick releases on your wheels, seatpost, etc. with some form of  bolt or security skewer. This means you may need to carry a wrench of sorts but that is a small price to pay for a extra piece of mind!

High Risk Situations

If you fall into any of these categories you’ll need to put forth more effort to keep your bike secure.

High end flashy bike. Self explanatory

Regularly leaving your bike parked in public for long periods of time. The longer your bike is accessable the more likely someone is to mess with it

Parking in the same place every day.  For example if you can’t bring your bike inside to your job 40 hours a week a thief can scout and then attack you bike at leisure. They will know where and when to find your bike as well as exactly what kind of lock you have!

Parking in high theft risk areas.  Downtown areas are often bad, but to a certain extant any city area  may be considered high risk.

In these cases you need to replace all quick releases and then also lock your frame, wheels, seat, etc. with strong and multiple types of locks!

I stumbled across this video via a link in the comments section of bikeportland.org.  This experienced New York bike mechanic goes on a walk and critiques random peoples locking techniques. If you fall into a high risk category you are advised to pay attention to the bikes that earn A grades!

If you think that a busy street will deter thieves watch this . These guys experimented by staging broadaylight bike thefts on busy streets to see what sort of reaction they would get.