Silvio S 30 Thailand

Steve Rose

Steve Rose

Member
Sorry I was rained out today from trying more gear combinations. But yes I confirm I have been riding in the big ring, 50 tooth gear in front and the 36 tooth gear on the cassette. This requires some effort, but I can sustain it for the ride. When I shift to lower tooth gears on the cassette the crank spins faster, me pumping faster on the pedals but seemingly little effect on faster speed on the bike verses pumping less fast in the 50 tooth 36 tooth combination. I am sure I am not using my words properly to convey what I think is happening. I just think I should be riding faster as almost all DFB pass me. I am in better than average shape for my age, now adding cycling 3 X a week to my schedule of 3X swims and 3 X TRX workouts a week.
I want to be Like Larry OZ, an old guy on a fast bike!
 
castlerobber

castlerobber

Zen MBB Master
Steve Rose said:
I confirm I have been riding in the big ring, 50 tooth gear in front and the 36 tooth gear on the cassette. This requires some effort, but I can sustain it for the ride. When I shift to lower tooth gears on the cassette the crank spins faster, me pumping faster on the pedals but seemingly little effect on faster speed on the bike
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When you shift, have you looked down to verify that the rear derailleur is actually moving the chain to the next cog (i.e., the derailleur isn't stuck)? Have you shifted all the way across the cassette to the smallest cog, and still felt no increase in resistance? Can you hear the freewheel ratcheting when you coast? Do the pedals ever suddenly slip, with no resistance at all? I'm starting to suspect a mechanical problem.
 
Steve Rose

Steve Rose

Member
I rode another 15 K today and tried to shift down on the cassette, after a couple of smaller rings on the cassette the effort to pedal became very light with a very rapid cadence of my feet to try and maintain speed, sometimes the pedals would slip or spin with no resistance. Was this because the effort was too easy? I ended back up on the big ring in front and the 2nd or third smaller gear from the largest on the cassette. my average speed was 19.6 Km/h.
I have been experiencing on both knees a pain under the patella. Maybe biking so new for me, and or applying too much force in the low gear setup? Can you advise me for a level straight run, what gears make the most sense from a speed, cadence, and sustained effort point of view? I will set those gears and ride them to see if it improves.
 
castlerobber

castlerobber

Zen MBB Master
Steve Rose said:
after a couple of smaller rings on the cassette the effort to pedal became very light with a very rapid cadence of my feet to try and maintain speed, sometimes the pedals would slip or spin with no resistance. Was this because the effort was too easy?
Click to expand...
No, not at all. The bike shouldn't act like that. Something's wrong with your drivetrain, either the cassette or the freewheel. I'd say it's time to find a bike mechanic. It shouldn't be a difficult or expensive repair.

Steve Rose said:
I have been experiencing on both knees a pain under the patella. Maybe biking so new for me, and or applying too much force in the low gear setup?
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Yes, very likely. Also, your bike fit may need to be adjusted a little now that you're more used to the Silvio.
 
castlerobber

castlerobber

Zen MBB Master
Steve Rose said:
how would you adjust the bike fit?
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Once the gears are working right and you've ridden the Silvio some more at a comfortable cadence, the pain may go away. If it doesn't--pain in the front of the knee may mean the reach to the pedals is too short, and you'd need to lengthen the boom a few mm, while keeping the handlebar reach the same. There should be plenty of threads here on the forums explaining the procedure.
 
MrSteve

MrSteve

Zen MBB Master
The late, great Sheldon Brown has a lot of information, good information, on bicycles in general.
Here's an introduction to understanding how your drivetrain works: It's the same on recumbents like ours.
http://sheldonbrown.com/gears.html
While you're on Mr. Brown's site, poke around and have fun!
 
Steve Rose

Steve Rose

Member
got the boom lengthen a few mm today and an adjustment to the derailed to allow easier shifting to the smaller gears on the cassette. hope for a test ride tomorrow and a better ride experience.
 
DavidCH

DavidCH

In thought; expanding the paradigm of traversity
It will be a eureka moment for sure. Then you will suffer the white knuckles like every rider who starts to go faster on a Silvio. Once you do get it all going, get comfortable with the speed and keep on telling yourself to relax.
 
super slim

super slim

Zen MBB Master
Steve are you using cleated shoes and pedals, as this will make cycling a LOT less load on your legs, as you do not need a high force on your pedals to stop your shoes slipping off the pedals, due to your legs being horizontal!
 
Steve Rose

Steve Rose

Member
big day today, finally in big ring on front and 3rd smallest ring on the cassette, a little harder to get going but once up to speed easier and a lot faster
hit 30 Kph and shaved a minute or more off my lap times. My computer phone link paused in the ride so no data, but a great speed ride.
it seems once you get going at 30 kph the effort doesn't seem so bad, maybe centrifugal force is working.
I have not tried bike shoes with the locking cleats yet, but I have the pedals that can do either. I will need to work up to the cleats and be a better rider.
 
ratz

ratz

Wielder of the Rubber Mallet
castlerobber said:
It sounds like you may not have much experience with bikes that have gears of this type--is that correct? Are you more used to a single-speed bike, or maybe one with an internally-geared hub? If so, these articles might be helpful:

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/gears.html
http://www.bicycling.com/training/fitness/basics-bike-shifting
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I'm excited that you are sticking with this Steve. But it's also clear we need to find a good video for how the gearing works. Some of use have been doing this for so long we take that for granted. I guess that means we have arrived as a bike of choice for entry level people upping there game, this is very good

Frankly the gears mess up my 20 year old daughter too; and I had to teach my wife 2 years ago; I was shocked it wasn't obvious to her, that was a quick lesson for me. So I just googled for a video that covers it. Surprisingly all the ones I found are terrible.... So a shout out to the tribe, lets see if anyone can find a good video on Cassette gearing basics. Failing that I'll make a video in the garage this weekend; it's clearly a need.

Stick with it Steve we'll get you there; and if we are miss-understanding and going too simple let us know; the typing versus talking barrier leaves us inferring your status. but I think we are on the trail now.
 
castlerobber

castlerobber

Zen MBB Master
ratz said:
Frankly the gears mess up my 20 year old daughter too; and I had to teach my wife 2 years ago; I was shocked it wasn't obvious to her, that was a quick lesson for me.
Click to expand...
When I bought my first geared bike after 15 years of riding Sears Free Spirit bikes with a 3-speed hub, I already intuitively understood the general idea of making the bike easier to pedal up hills, harder down hills, and comfortable on the flats. The salesman at the LBS gave me a two-minute lesson on how to shift the triple crankset and six-speed cassette, which mostly consisted of "don't cross-chain, stay in the middle ring as much as possible" rather than how to shift optimally. It took me a while to comprehend why smaller gears up front were easier, but smaller gears in back were harder.

ratz said:
if we are miss-understanding and going too simple let us know
Click to expand...
Please do.
 
SamP

SamP

Guru
Hmm.. I don't think anyone has actually described what's going on with the gears, just relatively.

Imagine if your pedal crank was connected directly to the wheel, like in a unicycle. Every time you turned the pedals around once, the wheels would turn around once.

Now separate the cranks from the wheel, attaching a small toothed wheel to the wheel (on a bike, this toothed wheel is called a cog) and another toothed wheel to the cranks (called a chainring) , then connect the cog and chainring with a chain. If the cog and chainring were the same size, then turning the cranks once would still turn the wheel once.

Now imagine if the chainring was larger than the cog. Then turning the cranks once would turn the cog more than once. So turning the cranks once would result in the wheel turning more than once. So you go farther than before for the same amount of pedaling (turns of the carnk). The distance change would be the number of teeth on the chainring divided by the number of teeth on the cog, so if the chainring had 40 teeth and the cog had 20 teeth, then your wheel would turn twice for every turn of the cranks, so you would go twice as far. Call this number the gear ratio. The higher the gear ratio, the harder it is to turn the cranks, but the farther you go with each turn of the cranks.

Now bicycles often have multiple cogs on the wheel (the collection of cogs is known as a cassette) and multiple chainrings (I don't know of a name for a collection of chainrings, the cranks with the collection of chainrings (or even one chainring) is known as a crankset). So you can adjust the gear ratio. Larger chainrings increase the gear ratio, smaller cogs increase the gear ratio.

[fixed a few typos]
 
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