HOW and WHEN to Shift Gears On a 7 Speed INTERNAL Gear Bike

Hi guys, it's Alana here with SIXTHREEZERO. Today, I'm going to show you how to shift gears with a seven-speed internal gear hub.

All right. I'm here with the Every Journey seven-speed internal gear. This is one of our newer bikes and actually, this is the men's model. So if you've ever wondered if a woman can ride a man's bike, yes, because I'm 5'1, and I can ride this bike pretty comfortably as long as the seat's all the way down. But the great thing about this bike is that it has internal gears. So that means that all of the gears are in the hub. Now, normally on our seven-speed bikes, you will see the derailleur outside on the right side of the rear wheel. You can see the different chainrings and when you switch gears, you typically should be moving, but the great thing about this is that can shift gears without moving. So right now I could set my gear before even pedaling and it's actually really simple.

It really simplifies the gear shifting process. So right now I'm at set up three. One of the ways that this differs is that normally with our seven-speed bikes, you should shift away from you to go to a higher gear and toward you to go to a lower gear. But with the internal gear hub, you actually it's reversed. So if you want to go to a lower gear, you shift away from you and you can see here in the display which gear you're in. If you want to go to a higher gear, shift towards you. So when do you want to use a higher gear versus a lower gear? This bike has seven speeds so that gives you a lot of variation. Typically, when you're riding uphill, you will want to downshift to a lower gear. So shifting, there is a rubber gear shifter right here, and all you have to do from the handlebar is turn it.

It's pretty simple, effortless. If you've ever had a bike with gears, you'll be pretty familiar with this, how this works. So you grasp the shifter, shift it away from you. You'll one, two, those are pretty good for going uphill. Again, depending on how steep the hill is, you might, if it's pretty steep then definitely you'll want to be in your lowest gear. And I always recommend keeping your eyes ahead. So you shift gears before you're riding uphill, before it gets too challenging you've already shifted gears and you don't have to worry about stopping and restarting. But yes, anytime you want to go uphill, or if you are just tired and want to use less effort with each pedal push, then you'll want to shift to a lower gear. Now, if you're going downhill or if there's at any point where you're just pedaling really quickly and you feel like you're not getting very far, then that means you need to shift to a higher gear.

So I always think higher means more effort, higher, higher effort, a lower gear, less effort. So basically with each push, you're exerting less effort the lower your gear is, and the reverse, the higher your gear is the more effort with each push. So let's try this out. All right, so the street we're biking on right now that we're going to start off on is pretty level. So I'm just going to start in third gear. And you can see, well, I'm already in third gear, but I can switch out and switch back in without moving. So that's pretty neat. All right, let's go.

So this is feeling pretty easy. So I'll just go ahead and switch to fourth gear. Another way that I like to think about the gears is kind of like leveling up. So say you take a hill in first gear and you find it pretty easy and you're ready to advance, then you can switch to second gear and it's kind of like you leveled up because you got a little stronger and you didn't need to be in the lowest gear.

So I'm going to stop right here. All right, so we are about to bike uphill and it's pretty steep. So I'm going to shift to first gear and you should notice that I was able to shift gears without actually pedaling. So it's a great thing about the internal hubs is that you don't need to be moving to switch gears. If you're at a stop like this, and you notice that you're going to have to shift, you can go ahead and do that. You don't have to wait until you're moving. So let's get going. There are some cars coming. So I'm in first gear, which is the easiest. And I think I can take this in second gear. Oh, maybe I spoke too soon. Yeah, this is steep but still doable. And you'll see when we head downhill, I'll switch up to seventh gear I'm sure.

I didn't know I'd be working out today. That's enough hill for me. All right, let's go down. So now just shifting up to seventh, but I probably won't be pedaling at all as I bike down, just coasting.

So now that I've started pedaling, seven is a little too high for this. I'll just take it down to five. Five is pretty good. Hills are just one example of when you'll want to switch gears. Another time when it's really going to come in handy that you don't have to be moving while switching gears is when you come to a stop sign or stop light because it's usually a good idea to switch down to the lowest gear coming from a stop, just so you can gain some momentum and then you can switch back up to three or four or whatever feels comfortable to you, but it's going to make it a lot easier with the internal gear hub because you might not be at a one when you get to the stop, but you want to get down to first gear when you're leaving the stop. So you can stop in whatever gear you're at 3, 4, 5, and then just switch down to one in preparation to start riding again, and then switch back up to whatever, three or four. That covers the seven-speed internal gear hub.

Like I said earlier, this is the men's Every Journey seven-speed internal gear, but we do also have a women's model. The difference would be that the top tube is a little lower. So if you saw earlier, I'm so used to stepping through, I forgot that this was a men's bike and the top tube was higher so my foot got caught, but definitely can ride this, not definitely, but most women will be able to ride this. I'm 5'1. And likewise, with the women's bike, men can ride it too. It's just how we classify our bikes, but generally, they're unisex. Some may be a better fit than others. And so if you're wondering if a bike is a good fit for you, definitely check out our website, sixthreezero.com. You can take our body fit quiz where you can input your stats, height, weight, riding style, and it'll suggest which bike models will be a good fit for you.

Additionally, you can check out our SIXTHREEZERO Pedalers group on Facebook. It's a great community of SIXTHREEZERO owners. And you can always ask questions and get feedback from real owners about whatever bike you're interested in, even accessories, anything. It's a great community, check it out. And don't forget to download the SIXTHREEZERO Pedaling app. You can add your bike to your profile, which is really neat because then you can look back and see how many rides you've taken with your bike, how many miles you've logged with your bike, and we have a leaderboard every week and every week we award someone a prize, sometimes a t-shirt, sometimes a bag or another accessory. So definitely download the app, check it out, and thank you for watching. Hopefully, this was a good explanation of how to shift gears with an internal gear hub. If you have any other questions or any other videos you'd like to see, leave them in the comments below. Thanks for watching. Don't forget, it's your journey, your experience. Enjoy the ride.