New to Cycling, Need Help!

[READ13]

Hi guys, I recently was given an old road bike, 8 gears. Whilst riding the chain snapped and after taking it to the halfords down the road, they sorted me out with a new chain and fitted it.

Now the thing is, knowing nothing about bikes, I proceeded to ride home, (very short trip) and only tried to change gear once home, stupid i know. anyway the gears would not change at all, literally nothing. i manually tried to move the gears on the rear wheel up which were on the lowest/smallest gear thing, ( furthermost away from the wheel, sorry again about terms!!) yet they just proceed to move back down automatically straight away. not really sure what else to do, anyone have any advice for a newbie??

THanks guys and go easy...im enjoying this and wanna learn, think this is the place!!

[Painkiller]

Read13. lets work on the terms:the gears in front are called Chain rings and the gears in back are cogs and together are called a rear cluster for all practical purposes. rings x cogs = speeds
It sounds as if your inner cable is not attached. How about some pics. maybe your inner cable is broke inside the housing and you do not know it somehow. Grab the cable with your hand and pull it. does the derailleur move then. let us know and we will go from there.

[DaveM]

Does the derailleur (the part the chain loops through by the back gears) move at all when you move the shifter? Is your shifter a little lever on the side of the lower tube of the frame ("frame shifters")? If so, the shifter should have a screw that tightens it to the frame. If that is a little loose, it won't hold the gear and will let the chain/derailleur slide back out to the outer cog when you let go.

Short answer of course it "take it back". It would be pretty bad to put a new chain on a bike and not check the shifting to make sure it's working. But something could have broken or gotten loose the first time you tried to shift.