I have a Shimano EF50, 8 speed and a Shimano Acera rear derailleur. I have absolutely no experience with bike gears! How do I use them?
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just ride and change gears
Practise with them. They must by no means be rattling or clattering. Sometimes you need to tweak the front one a small bit to stop this. Dredge up to slacken off the pressure while changing until you are sure that the chain has completed its go.
Don’t “cross over”. This means don’t use huge rings together or the small rings. You must go the chain from side to side maintenance the front and back more or less parallel.
Learn your cadence. This means that whatever the circumstances your legs must be doing the same RPM. This will be somewhere around 70 to 90. If you are twirling around too quick you can not get the power into the pedals so change up. If you are straining against the pedals since you are going too slow the same thing applies. Change down gears.
The left shifter reins the front derailleur which moves your chain on the three sprockets near your pedal. You basically have three gears here. The small ring ( #1 position ) is for low gear to go slow and climb. The middle gear ( #2 ) position is for medium speed and slightly harder to pedal. This can be used for level ground. The larger gear ( #3 ) is for high speed cruising or going downhill. It is the toughest to pedal. The right shifter reins the gears on the back wheel, and you have 7,8,or 9 sprockets. Use these to fine tune whatever front gear you are in. The lower numbers are simpler to pedal, then gradually shift up as your speed increase to the higher numbers. As you speed up and go to the highest on the right, you can then go to the next largest gear using the left shifter and then go back down to the lower numbers on the right. Select the genteel gear in advance in changing terrain, and if a climb is coming up, then get in your lower gears well in advance.
It’s all about the size difference between two gears. You’ve got 2 or 3 huge gears up front (called the chain rings) and a bunch of small gears in the back (called the cogs). Your shifters let you select which gears you want by moving the chain from one gear to another. Small gears up front combined with huge gears in the back have a lot of power but aren’t very quick. This is excellent for going up hills. Huge gears up front combined with small gears in the back have a lot of speed but aren’t very powerful. This is excellent for going downhill. Place everything in the middle as a early place for riding on flat ground. Select different gears in the back to get more power or speed as you need it, depending on your terrain. When you run out of gears in the back, change the gears in the front.
This is very much simplified, but must get you started.