Everything You Need to Know About a 7 Speed Bike - Bicycle Seven Speed Info

Hey everyone, I'm Dustin. I have nearly 20 years of experience in the bike and e-bike industry and today I'm going to tell you everything you must know about a seven-speed bicycle. Stick around.

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All right, so you're in the market for a seven-speed bike or you're interested in getting a bike with gears and you're not sure about seven speeds. Let me tell you everything you need to know about a seven-speed bicycle. Now right here I have the Sixthreezero EVRYjourney Touring Hybrid Cruiser bike. This is a seven-speed I have in front of me, and this also comes in a three-speed version.

Now, seven speeds mean you have seven gears. The way this works is you have your front cog or chain wheel up here, and then you have your rear cogs back here and you have seven cogs or chainrings or chain wheels that you can see back here. And depending on which position the chain is in, that's what gear you're in, and depending on what gear you're in, it'll be either easier or harder to pedal.

When you're in gear one, it's going to be easy to pedal, when you're in gear seven, it's going to be harder to pedal. The purpose of gear one being easier to pedal is to help you uphills. Also, if you want to give your legs a break and just have no resistance, gear one is for that. If you want to work your legs harder or go faster or you're on flat ground or you're going downhill and you need the tension of the crank and the chain wheel to catch up to the speed, you're going downhill, you want to be in seventh gear.

So the chain will move according to how you shift. So if you shift from one, it'll shift to the different cog and it'll shift the gears. It's important on seven-speed bikes that you must be pedaling if you have an external derailleur. So in this case, this is called an external derailleur, meaning it's external. Here it is. There are internal seven-speed hubs where the gears are inside the hub. That option is also available. Those are going to be a little bit more expensive than an external derailleur like you see here. Those are nice for some situations because they have everything contained in the hub and a little lower maintenance. Although they're not as common and you won't see them, we do have this in a version of an internal seven-speed. Periodically it's in stock and out of stock. It's a little bit more of a challenge to get it because it's not as common of a rear hub.

So this is an external derailleur right here on a seven-speed. You must have the chain greased at least once or twice a year, so the chain can move easily back here for shifting. So as you shift, it pulls the chain to the correct cog that corresponds to the gears.

Now, with a seven-speed, as I said, you need to be pedaling on the external derailleur for it to shift. You cannot be stopped. The chain has to be moving as you shift for the gears to change. If you shift while you're standing still and the bike's not moving, once you start pedaling again, you may cause problems with the chain falling off or other issues, it could get tangled.

Now with the shifter, a very common shifter for a seven-speed bike is this twist shifter here. It's nice because you put your hand here on the grip and actually the front half of your hand will already be on the shifter, and you can just go like this, and that will shift the gears, and right here I have my indicator where I can see which gear I'm in. There's a little screen here and I can see plus to go up, minus to go down. Pretty simple.

Now, other shifters are available, but I would say a twist shifter is the most common on seven-speed bikes, there's something called a trigger shifter where you push with your thumb. It's like a trigger, you push with your thumb, and that shifts gears. So you would push your thumb to go up and then you would probably use your index finger to go down. So that's a different type of shifter. But I think for recreation and around town, it's a little bit easier for anyone that wants to make sure they're constantly keeping a good grip where they can just easily twist up or down. The trigger shifter in some situations can be a little bit more challenging, but in some situations, the trigger shifter can shift a little faster as well.

So seven speeds. Also, these are going to be bikes that are great for recreation around town, really multipurpose riding. But if you're looking to get into really high speeds like above 12 miles an hour, then you may want more than seven speeds. But if you have hills to deal with and you need something that can get you uphill, seven-speed will do it because you still have that low first gear where it's going to be very easy to pedal, so you don't necessarily need more gears. The first gear of a seven-speed, it'll do great on hills, it'll get you where you need to go, and it'll roll easily on flat ground. That's a huge benefit of not just having one gear but having seven gears.

In addition to that, I'll just say not all seven speeds have to have the front and rear hand brakes we do on this bike. It's a safer version, but if you're looking in the market, you may see some seven speeds that possibly have... They could have no break on the front. I guess you could have a coaster break in the rear as well. Most of a lot of geared seven speeds are going to have the ability to pedal backward without stopping. That's called a freewheel. That's just kind of... Again, you don't have any braking when you pedal backward, but you don't necessarily have to hand have hand brakes on a seven-speed, that's just the feature we have here.

Other than that, I love seven speeds for the intermediate rider or the couple times a week rider that doesn't need something with a ton of gears that become more complicated. When you start to get into 21 speeds, you're going to have three chain wheels on the front and seven on the back, it becomes a little bit more complex. The seven-speed is simpler, with just easier maintenance, and fewer issues that can occur while you're riding.

So that's everything you need to know about a seven-speed. If I left something out, please comment below or email us at team@sixthreezero.com or call us at (310) 982-2877. You can find the EVRYjourney on our website, sixthreezero.com. And if you're in the market for a bike seven-speed, and you don't know what you're looking for, take our proprietary body fit quiz. We'll answer a few questions about your body and your life, and we'll recommend the perfect bike for you.

In addition to that, we have a 30-day test ride your bike policy. If you don't love it in 30 days, send it back, no questions asked, no money out of your pocket. And join our Facebook Pedalers group and download our app before you purchase. You can see real riders logging their rides on the app. Talk to them in the Pedalers group, and ask them questions so you can figure out what's best for you. Then once you have your bike, post photos in the Pedals group, and make friends compete on the leaderboard with the app, it's tons of fun. So thanks for sticking around and don't forget it's your journey, your experience, enjoy the ride.