What does the grip shift do on a mountain bike?

Question

Exactly what is the grip shift and what does it do if I change it to higher or lower?

Answer 1

Gripshift is SRAM's gear shifting technology. On the right shifter, you turn it away from you to shift up a gear and towards you (like  the throttle on a motorbike) to shift to shift down a gear.

This is opposite on the left shifter (if you have one) - towards you to shift to a larger chainring.

Answer 2

The grip shifter's job is the same as a thumb shifter -- move the chain from one gear to another. Combining a small front gear with a large back gear gives you lots of power but not much speed, good for going up hills. Combining a large front gear with a small back gear gives you lots of speed but not much power, good for going down hills. To start, put everything in the middle. Shift back gears as your terrain changes. If you run out of back gears, shift a front gear. There's more to it than that, but this should be enough to get you started.

HTH

Answer 3

a grip shift is instead of having thumb shifter so bassically a grip shift is a portion on the side of the hand grip closer to the other handgrip and when u turn downit it shifts your gears up/and when u turn it up it shifts your gears up