Gear Adjustment made simple!

Rear gears:

Step 1

Loosen the cable and pedal so the chain drops all the way to the smallest cog on the rear cassette. Standing directly behind the bike make sure that the jockey wheels fall in a straight line directly below the small cog. There is are two small screws located next to each other normally marked with a L and H (Low and High ) at this stage use the 'H' screw to adjust the dérailleur so the two jockey wheels and the small cog line up.

Step 2

The next step is cable adjustment , a handy tip is before tightening and clamping the cable is to give the the barrel adjuster two full turns out as this will give you some adjustment at a later stage if you initially clamp the cable with two much tension. This step gets easier with time as the more time you set the gears you will get a better idea on what the cable tension should feel like.

Step 3

Following  the initial setting of cable tension,  proceed to shift through the gears one by one
one click for each gear and watch the transition between gears if you are changing up into an easier gear and you click once and the chain does not shift into the next gear then give the barrel adjuster small turns increasing the cable tension until the chain climbs a gear. Move through all the gears adjusting the cable tension as necessary.

Step 4

When you get to the top gear do the same as step 1 and check that the jockey wheels fall in a straight line under the gear. Use the limiting screw 'L' to limit the movement of the dérailleur and stop it from moving to far and moving the chain into the spokes.

For fine adjustment most shifters will have barrel adjusters for this purpose.

For front gears follow the same steps.