just after any tips or advice on the best ways
to change gears (be it up or down) while climbing?

short burst of effort to get some momentum and then ease off the pressure / torque while you change.

Trying to change when under full load isn’t good for the drivetrain; it’s the only time I’ve bust chains / bent teeth on the cassette.

On a more zen level – select a gear you can spin comfortably to the top of a climb when you’re at the bottom, and then live with it. If it’s too easy, just pedal faster, but if you have to change, changing up is easier because you’ll only be changing up when you have extra capacity in the legs to be able to spin up some speed and then softpedal. If you are in too hard a gear and need to change down, finding the power to spin up some speed is already less likely.

Or get a SS and don’t change gear at all – just use your three SS gears; sit down / stand up / get off and push.

Oh, and if you have a double (or triple) up front – use it in advance of the hill. Changing the front under heavy load is a killer for chainrings. Don’t be the bloke that has a double but refuses to use the inner ring because it’s weak – if you’re carrying it around all day then use the bloody thing.

That’s when I love my double up front. If there’s an unexpected change in gradient, one flick will shift the front ring and get me in the right gear straight away. On a 1x system you’d have stalled completely by the time you’d get to the low gears.

theotherjonv – Member
short burst of effort to get some momentum and then ease off the pressure / torque while you change.

This. I once folded a granny ring by not doing that and shifting under load.

If I’m losing momentum on a hill, or know I’m about to for whatever reason, even if I only feel like I need to be one gear down I always shift two to compensate for the momentum loss of easing off the torque. I don’t underestimate the momentum loss as badly or often as I used to, but do sometimes and an extra downshift is a decent way to compensate.

I will shift down to the granny ring at the bottom of a climb if I think I might need it – but my bike is 2×9 set up with 17 usable gears so I still have plenty of gears in the granny ring. Its easier to shift at the back than the front when climbing IMO

cheers everyone for replying.

i have been out and about on the bike since and have followed the advice and i must say the drivetrain is very grateful. Gear changes a lot smoother!

many thanks..

“sit down / stand up / get off and push” – simple gearing at its best!!!