trickybilly

I am a total noob when it comes to bikes. I have bought my new MTB and one question troubles me. On both left and right gears when the pointer is at the leftmost position it indicates the fastest speed (the hardest to pedal).

It seems illogical to me. You see, when it comes to cars it seems to be the opposite situation: the pointer at the speedometer moves from left to right as you go faster and faster. So, what is the logic behind this?
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livedarklions

Pointers are generally nonexistent on bikes, so there's really no standardization among the shifters that have them. This right left arrangement is probably easier mechanically for some reason.

​​​​​​Gear indicators on cars aren't generally organized consistent with speedometer logic, either.

Kai Winters

Because someone claiming to know better says so...that's why.
Riders don't pay attention to those silly indicators.
The only time to look down at your gears is when you're hoping you still have one or two to use hehehe.

Reflector Guy

Last bike I had with gear pointers was a Claris-level bike; the higher models usually don't have them. But I really almost never looked at them anyway and the clear plastic windows eventually got yellowed and cloudy with age.

prj71

Nobody looks at the pointers on the shifter when riding. You just go by feel.

7 bikes in my household and not one of them has a pointer on the shifter.

njkayaker

The indicators are not indicating speed. They are indicating gear position.

Your gears are changed by cables moving in a particular direction. The indicators follow the cable movement. There isn’t really any option to how the cable moves. So, the indicators move the way they do because of that.

Don’t worry about people saying don’t use them if you find them useful.

You’ll problem need them less with more experience.

livedarklions

I've had a couple of bikes with indicators and I think they had entirely different arrangements. I'm going to disagree with the tone of a couple of the posts on this thread because I think they're suggesting you shouldn't feel like a "real" rider if you find the indicator useful. If it's there and you can use it effectively, there's really nothing wrong with that. It also might be a good way for you to learn how to check gears by feel so when you get a bike without indicators, you won't feel lost..

indyfabz

So true.

Back in 2019 I was climbing Thompson Pass from Idaho to Montana during a self contained tour. 8 miles to the top from the town of Murray. The first four miles are relatively easy. The second 4 miles average over 7%. When I hit the the second 4 miles I felt like I was dragging a ship anchor. Looked down for one more gear and realized I was in the middle chainring of my triple. I had been using it during the first 4 miles.

livedarklions

Says who? I ride 5 different bikes, I like to know how the same gear combination might feel different on the different bikes, so I do occasionally need to look at my gears to figure out precisely what combo I'm using in a given situation.

Your first sentence makes the rest of your comment somewhat ironic, btw.

prj71

You can't tell by how it feels in your legs and the amount off effort required?

Like I said...7 bikes in my household and not one has an indicator on the shifter. About the only time I've seen an indicator on a shifter is on the cheap walmart bikes.

livedarklions

I don't have any indicators on my bikes, but no my legs aren't very sensitive to nuance so I sometimes look at my gears to figure out where I am. Yes, those indicators were on cheap bikes I had several years ago. They were not of great use, but I did occasionally look at them. My "says who" comment was about the "look down at your gears" part as it was the indicator part.

I tend to ride in the highest gear available on the bike and, this is going to sound like a brag but it's true, my legs are generally too strong to notice anything too dramatic as I shift up. On my Serotta, I ride habitually in the 53x11 combo, but I often think I'm in a lower gear because the bike is so easy to pedal. Yes, I know that makes me an outlier, but I will sometimes have to look at my gears to confirm where I am. This is especially true when conditions require me to shift down, like wind and uphill. I get to the right gear by feel, but I wouldn't be able to tell you the number without actually looking. On a very steep hill, I might touch my lowest gears, but telling you where I am in the middle is not a strong suit of mine.

I figure OP is finding the indicators useful or they wouldn't be asking about them. I don't think it's nice to question their bona fides just because of that.

Reflector Guy

Or on the really cool bikes we had when we were kids. One of the hand-me-down bikes I had as a kid was a purple 5-speed which had a big banana seat, a chrome sissy bar and a huge shifter that looked like it came out of a Z28 Camaro. It was the coolest bike ever! Too bad I outgrew it in a couple of years....

Iride01 

I use to not pay attention to gear indicators because I didn't have them on my road bikes. Though it took some effort to train myself not to look down at the rear to see what gear I was in. But I did get out of the bad habit of looking as well as the bad habit of looking at the pedals when I clip in.

However now with Di2 and d-fly I can see on my Garmin what gear combo I'm in. So now I'm using that info to let me know that I am in fact in the 52/11 combo and it is fruitless to keep pushing on the paddle trying to get a higher ratio! <grin>

Any how.... welcome to BF trickybilly

As you can see we are opinionated and don't necessarily just answer the question. But you do get to see different perspectives. And you soon realize that we all don't ride bikes for the same reasons or enjoy doing the same stuff with them.

njkayaker

53x11 with 700Cx25 tires at 80 RPM is 30.3 mph.

Litespud

it’s no more illogical that the way shifters work - one action on the RHS shifter might yield a “faster” gear (smaller sprocket) while the corresponding action on the LHS shifter will shift to a smaller chainring (a “slower” gear). It is what it is within the limits of how cable-op shifters work.
For myself, despite having ridden seriously for ~40 years and on the same bike for the last 20, I still constantly glance down to see what rear gear I’m in - it’s positively a tic by now. When/if I upgrade to electronic shifting (come on Campagnolo, where’s that wireless Chorus EPS?!), I’m hoping it’ll integrate with my head unit, and I can break the “look down” habit.

cxwrench

So he's probably around 55-60rpm. Just shift into the 11 and ride.

To answer the OP's question it's because while the shifters work the same when you pull cable at the rear derailleur you go to easier gears and in the front you go to harder gears. Simple really.

smd4

I've got an in-line gear indicator for Dura Ace 7700 STI shifters. Apparently even folks using that level of components liked to see visually what gear they were in!

livedarklions

I have that guy blocked, but you're exactly right, I never claimed to have anything but a pretty slow cadence (which I don't measure). I actually saw another guy riding the way I do the other week, grinding slowly and going about 20-23 mph on the flat. It's an old-guy with strong legs friendly method of going pretty fast with long endurance. High torque, low RPM.

I'm good with the WTF, BTW. I know I'm a mutant.

njkayaker

At 60 RPM, it's 22.7 MPH. Lugging at 50 RPM, it's 18.9 MPH.

livedarklions

TBH, I think it was more like it seemed like a good idea on paper at a time where they were still experimenting with the basic use of STI, but that people who bought Dura Ace didn't really end up liking it in practice. I'm making that up, but it would fit with the fact that it doesn't appear on later Dura Ace iterations.

Daniel4

If you install an analog speedometer on your bike, the pointer will also turn clockwise as the speed increases, just like a car speedometer.

But your question is for the gear indicators. In a manual transmission car, the gears are arranged in an "H". In an automatic, it is linear starting with P at the top if the stickshift is between the driver and passenger seat.

On a bike, the front and rear cables work opposite. When you pull the cable on your left hand, the front crank shifts to the larger ring making pedalling more difficult. When you pull the cable on your right hand, the rear cassette shifts to the larger cassette but makes the pedalling easier.

smd4

7700 was released in 1996, several years after STI hit the market, so STI had been around a while. The indicator was an after-market accessory, if I'm not mistaken.

indyfabz

You might be right. I know some people had it, but others did not. I had a frame built with DA in 2001. I did not have an indicator, but I did have that goofy thing they called a "Flight Deck." IIRC, it told you what gear you were in and calculated a cadence even when coasting. One day, during a charity ride, it started raining really hard. The unit starting malfunctioning, showing me going 60+ mph going up steep hills. Then the speed would drop to 0 then back up to the 60s. After about 10 min. of that the thing stopped working altogether.

livedarklions

Well, 6 years after introduction is not a lot of generations down the line, but y'know, half-empty, half-full. Never actually saw one of those, so the accessory doesn't appear to have caught on.

Fun piece of trivia that it exists, though! Do you have a picture of it?

indyfabz

If you search DuraAce gear indicator in Google images there are photos of the different models.

And there is an old BF thread about their installation.

Installing those Dura-Ace inline gear indicators... - Bike Forums