Book suggestion

I'm looking for a good all around bike maintenance/repair book, preferably with pictures and good, clear descriptions for someone who is rather technically challenged like me.

I am looking to get to know a bit more about my bike so I don't feel like I do about my car (that is, utterly clueless) and I think I am going to spend some quality time with her this weekend and give her a bath and clean and lube her chain so I figure it would be a good time to better get to know her various parts and stuff.

K.

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Originally Posted by Kimmyt

I'm looking for a good all around bike maintenance/repair book, preferably with pictures and good, clear descriptions for someone who is rather technically challenged like me.

I am looking to get to know a bit more about my bike so I don't feel like I do about my car (that is, utterly clueless) and I think I am going to spend some quality time with her this weekend and give her a bath and clean and lube her chain so I figure it would be a good time to better get to know her various parts and stuff.

K.

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Hey Kimmyt - We have The Bicycling Guide to Complete Bicycle Maintenance and Repair for Road and Mountain Bikes (by Todd Downs) and Park Tool's Big Blue Book of Bicycle Repair.:)

Any feedback or likes/dislikes on either of those volumes?

I really like the Lennard Zinn Books. I have both the cycling primer and road bike maintenance books. The cycling primer is nice, as it talks also a lot abou bike fit, caring for your body, and introduces you to maintenance. The maintenance book is for heavy duty maintenance. He has good diagrams, and with the second book I can tune my bike by myself, although I still bring it in to have major parts changed out (but could probably do more with the book if I chose to spend my time that way).

I have the Bicycling Guide to Complete... and the Park Tool's Big Blue Book, too. Of the two I much prefer the BBB, mainly because it is so clear and straight forward and has pictures that really make sense for me.

I need very clear pics and simple instructions, because I have no clue in heck what I'm doing!

Also, if you need more in depth or a different approach, you can go to the Park Tool's website for more info on whatever you're trying to fix.

I thought I had a great one in "Bicycle Repair Step-by-Step" by Rob Van Der Plas... copyright 2002.

But.... it's missing pages 32-48, and pages 81-96 are in there twice. I see he is based in San Francisco. Maybe one of you California girls has a line on this guy and knows if, or how I could get my copy replaced with one that isn't missing pages? Great book, good color photos, just missing some pertinent sections.

Write to the publisher. They should be able to give you the missing pages. Or you could get it from the library and photocopy them. Publisher is probably your best bet for the best quality.

The author has no control over the printing and binding, and won't have copies of the book or of the missing pages to send you.

I really love my Zinn and the Art of Road Bike Maintenance. It has easy to understand explanations and good illustrations of stuff.

spazz