The bike is a Trek 7.2 FX, and no, when I stop I need to get off the seat in order to be flat footed. Even when I am riding, if I let the leg hang it will barely touch the ground, but not high enough to where I can lock my knee when pedaling.
Super. I don't know if you've driven a 4x4 truck that has a Low-High transfer case, but you probably understand the core concept: use LOW range when you need maximum torque, like pulling a big boat out of the lake up a ramp. Use HIGH for normal driving.
On your bike, the crankset has three chainrings that are like a three-speed transfer case. You shift these using the left-hand shifter. When you shift the chain from one chainring to another, you may follow that with one or two shifts on the rear gears, to fine-tune the resistance to your liking.
The small chainring (1 on the left shifter) gives lots of torque for climbing a steel hill, or possibly riding on a very high-resistance surface like wet sand or mud. This is like LOW range on the 4x4 truck, you use it when you have to, then get out of it. When you're using the small chainring, you'll use just the lowest several rear gears, not the whole spread.
The middle chainring (2 on the left shifter) is good for mellow uphills and riding into a headwind, starting from stop signs, and moderate speeds on flat roads. You'll probably be able to use all of the rear gears from the middle ring.
The big chainring (3 on the left shifter) is good for faster riding. Downhill, downwind, or fast riding on level roads. You can use all the rear gears from the big chainring too, although it can wear stuff a little faster if you use the big chainring with the innermost rear gears a lot. But I do anyway, it's not the end of the world.
Bottom line, you pick the chainring that suits the "big picture," then fine-tune using the rear gears. Shoot for a pedalling RPM that doesn't "lug your engine" but doesn't feel like it's too fast to do efficiently. When seated, 80 to 90rpm is a good zone to start off with. If your FX is stock, it won't have toeclips, or the automatic "clipless" pedals that operate like a ski binding, so in that case you may find high pedalling RPMs don't work so well because your feet don't stay in place. But try to keep your RPMs up in the 70-80 range at least.
In the olden days when bikes didn't have so many gears, the seasoned riders made a point of knowning the full gear progression on their drivetrain, and would often do simultaneous front and rear shifts in order to use all their gear ratios in ascending/descending order. In this day and age, though, most riders drive a modern bike the way I described... pick the chainring that has the appropriate spread of gearing for their immediate needs, then shift the rear as needed until they run out of range. More or less
I did just the 3 miles again today.
Total: 7060
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