The gear shifters or levers, front and rear derailleurs (the part that actually shifts the gears up and down), chain, rear cassette and chain rings (front gears) make up the gear set.
As you go up in price, you’ll get a better quality gear set. This usually means more of the parts are made from metal rather than plastic, are made of higher quality material, perform better and are more durable.
Most gear sets will be a ‘triple’ set up, which means three chain rings or cogs at the front. This gives a huge range of gears, which is great for hilly areas as there’ll be easy gears to make going up a doddle, and harder gears for getting some speed up.
At entry level, expect a triple at the front, then either 7 or 9 gears at the back, giving you 21 or 27 gears overall (3 x 7, or 3 x 9)
Near the top of the price bracket, more hardtail mountain bikes will have a ‘double’ or two chain ring set up, and usually a bigger rear cassette with in the region of 10 gears on it. Although this gives fewer gears overall (20) the sizes of the cogs on the cassette mean that they usually have a similar range to the easy and hard gears on the triple set up – so they are still great for riding up hill and on the flat.
At entry level, expect Shimano Acera. From about £550 to £700 expect the higher-level Shimano Alivio and Deore, and towards the top end of the scale expect a full Deore gear set, and sometimes some Sram components.
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