Which way up

[Mansfield Marauder]

I recently had a very interesting conversation with my LBS it was not until I realised we were talking at cross purposes that I finally managed to understand what he was on about, when he talked about changing up he was refering to physical cog sizes i.e. going from the littlest cog to the biggest cog. When I talk about changing up I refer to changing up gear ratios i.e. going from the biggest cog to the littlest cog. Was just curious what everyone else thought about which way was up?

[Brian G]

Certainly I think about changing up to a higher gear, i.e. one where the same effort means greater speed, in other words changing to a smaller sprocket or to a larger chainring. Having said that, moving the chain "up and down the sprockets", to adjust the indexing for example, does tend to take on the more literal meaning of up to the big sprockets and down to the wee ones.

Brian

[Mick F]

I agree.

UP means UP in Ratio.

The trouble is, as Brian says, it can be confusing when you're talking about how the chain moves, or a fixing broken gearing system.

I always try to steer clear of UP and DOWN, and describe the movement from cog to cog or size to size.

[tatanab]

A beef of mine too.

Us old'uns talk about changing up as in changing to a higher ratio, as when driving a car. Logical isn't it?

Unfortunately it seems that Campag or Shimano have taken to talking about changing up the cassette to a larger sprocket. The youngsters and trendy types have latched onto this and it is now nigh on impossible to figure out what they are describing when they write about "changing up" on the various internet fora.

[Punk_shore]

tatanab,

If we were to talk about changing up/down the equivalent front wheel size on a penny-farthing, do you think the discussion would be any clearer?
Otherwise it's big cogs at the back or at the front. However, how many novice riders are taught how to use gears on their initial geared bike...

Happy gear-shifting, Punk_shore