Bicycling Magazine's Complete Guide to Bicycle Maintenance and Repair: Over 1,000 Tips, Tricks, and Techniques to Maximize Performance, Minimize Repai

by Jim Langley

Book Overview

Fix a broken chain with a shoelace Improve shifter performance with dishwashing detergent Inside are thousands of tips to repair and maintain any road or mountain bike. Whether it's the latest model... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1579540090
• ISBN13: 9781579540098
• Release Date: June 1999
• Publisher: Rodale Books
• Length: 351 Pages
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 8.4" x 10.9"

Customer Reviews

This book changed my life!

Before I read this book, I would stare blankly at my bike and never had any clue how it worked. After I started to read it, every little part of the bike took shape and I began to understand how everything fit together, how all the components were made, and how to diagnose problems with them. I started fixing and upgrading my bike, bought a couple of old bikes and refurbished them, and just had a great time doing all of it. Now, 2 years later, I've gone from a casual cyclist to a huge gearhead who talks, rides, and dreams about bike. I hang out on bikeforums.net and could draw a derailer with a blindfold on. So, that's why I say this book changed my life :-) Bike repair is not just a great hobby, it's an immensely useful skill! You can save an enormous amount of money and time by doing your own repairs, and you can customize your bike to your heart's content. I've also learned a lot about materials engineering and mechanical design from this hobby.

Bicycling Magazine's Complete Guide to Bicycle Maintenance

I wish I had found this book a few years ago. I am an avid bicyclist and live in a more rural area. To have my bike serviced I must travel at least an hour one way. This book has helped tremendously with important adjustments to derailers, brakes and also measuring for good fit for a good ride.

Read this *before* you buy a bike!

I've just gotten a new bike, and this book was my bible along the rocky road to buying a bike. Technology's come a long way in the 15 years since I last bought a bike, and I was starting from nearly zero - I didn't know my top tube from my seat stay.This book covers the basics of what bicycle components are, what they do when they're working right, and how they can fail. I'm not someone who does a lot of "wrenching" on his own bike, but I found I needed to read this whole book in order to make an informed bike-buying decision. What do the tradeoffs between strength and lightness in wheelsets really mean with respect to your riding style? Do you need to go for the more expensive bottom bracket? (Probably not.) What's a 'headset', and why does it need to be covered up when you're transporting the bike on the back of a car?This book will answer all the questions you had about the makeup and operation of a bike, but more importantly, it'll answer the questions you didn't know enough to ask, and help you make the best-informed bike buying decision possible!

All types of bikes covered in one source with great pix!

This is an excellent book on the maintenance and repair of all bicycles.Each of the 17 chapters discusses one component of the bike, such as rear derailleurs, front derailleurs, brakes, wheels, suspension, frame and others. Each chapter begins with a drawn illustration of the system, which is followed by a text description of the system and maintenane and repair of the system. This is followed by a troubleshooting section listing common problems and their solutions. But the best part of each chapter are the step-by-step procedures with excellent black-and-white photographs of each step.In addition to discussing bike systems, there are chapters on creating a home workshop and even how to box a bike. (Exactly how my bike came from its manufacturer!)There's really not a lot more to ask for from this book. The main complaint is that some of it seems a little out-of-date despite its 1999 copyright date, and I regret now that I did not list examples as they struck me, but a minor one, for example, was ignorance of 10-speed cassettes. However, some bicycle components are changing rapidly, and it's difficult for authors to keep up. Note that this is the 4th "expanded and revised" edition, so it does appear that the editors of Bicycling have made a commitment to update the book regularly.I also got bogged down some times in the text description of procedures without pictures, but everything is clear when you get back into the step-by-step procedure section with the photographs. So it also seems that information is unnecessarily repeated.Bicycling magazine has run articles on how to get home from different types of roadside breakdowns. It would be nice if they include this as one separate chapter that can be read before a trip. The rest of the book lends itself to a "only read the chapter I need at the moment" type of use. You don't need to read through the whole book to understand chapter 15 on saddles, for example.I have also read and reviewed Complete Idiot's Guide to Bike Maintenance and Repair, and despite its knowledgable author and fun style, did not have step-by-step illustrations which are required for such a book. Others have also recommended the books by Zinn and Van Der Plas, and I have seen them and they look good, but separate books are written by each author for road bikes and mountain bikes, while this book is one reference for all bikes.

More information than I will ever need.

Beginners on up can use a book like this. Up to date and complete. Simple step by step instructions with loads of matching pictures.