Felt Bicycle - Derailleur Gears - Operation and Use

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Derailleur gears – how they work and how to use them
Mountain bike gear lever
Gear shifting is initiated by operating a lever on the shifter, a combined brake and
gear lever unit or by a short turn of the wrist with the twist grip, as the case may
be.
Because of the variety of different products, your FELT bike can be equipped with
components which are different in their shifting directions. Ask your FELT dealer
and check this before you ride. Read the manual of the shifting component manu-
facturer and practise shifting gears until you are familiar with it.
With Shimano Rapid Fire shifters (a) (lever shifters) pressing the large shifter lever
moves the chain towards the larger chainrings. Pulling the small lever towards the
back of the bike, located in front of the handlebars from the rider’s viewpoint, shifts
the chain towards the smaller sprockets.
This means that any gear shift made by pushing the large thumb shifter on the right
produces a lower gear, while pressing the large thumb shifter on the left moves the
chain to the larger chainring, thus producing a higher gear.
The Shimano Rapid Fire Plus shifters (b) (e.g. XTR model 2007) work according
to the usual Rapid Fire principle (see above), but in addition the small lever (the
index finger lever) can be pushed forwards with the thumb to achieve the same
shifting action as when using the index finger. The chain runs to the small chainring
and sprockets.
So you can shift by thumb and index finger or use the thumb only.
Furthermore, you can shift several gears with one action: A short pull or press of
the shifter lever results in a single gear change, a long pull or press leads to multiple
gear shifts.
With the Shimano Dual Control gear and brake lever components (c), the brake
lever has to be pushed downward to shift to the smaller sprockets at the rear or to
shift to the bigger chainring at the front. This will give you a higher gear.
Pushing the brake lever upward or pushing the optional small lever, located under
the handlebar, with the thumb, will give you a bigger sprocket at the rear or a
smaller chainring at the front, both leading to a lower gear.
a b c d