i need a good bike book.
11-01-21, 09:00 PM
#2
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Books can be a bit dicey if your bike is only 2-3 yrs old as book may not cover some of the strange bits of tech
the manufacturers and frame builders come up with.
OTOH www.parktool.com/repair-help has lots of up to date info and a good bit of vintage stuff with how-tos and
videos. GCN.com also has an extensive repair video section, mostly of gear out in the last 10 yrs.
Youtube ditto with tons of how to videos on older and newer stuff. Almost forgot Sheldon:
https://www.bikeforums.net/bicycle-m...shortcuts.html
Shimano parts have extensive online documentation in particular the DM (Dealer Manual) pdfs which
exist for parts going back decades if you burrow down. Helps to know their part #s.
the manufacturers and frame builders come up with.
OTOH www.parktool.com/repair-help has lots of up to date info and a good bit of vintage stuff with how-tos and
videos. GCN.com also has an extensive repair video section, mostly of gear out in the last 10 yrs.
Youtube ditto with tons of how to videos on older and newer stuff. Almost forgot Sheldon:
https://www.bikeforums.net/bicycle-m...shortcuts.html
Shimano parts have extensive online documentation in particular the DM (Dealer Manual) pdfs which
exist for parts going back decades if you burrow down. Helps to know their part #s.
Last edited by sch; 11-01-21 at 09:05 PM.
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11-01-21, 10:49 PM
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I was going to mention Sutherlands, but WHAT!!! 450 USD... Forget it... Sheldon continues to live thank you...
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11-01-21, 11:50 PM
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The Park Big Blue Book of Bicycle Repair is good but as sch said, books get dated pretty quickly. The Park Tool website he linked to is essentially the book in on-line form with much more recent updates.
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11-02-21, 11:34 AM
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See the pictures below: Some but not all of my bike books.
The Glenn's book has been updated but the older book is great for vintage stuff..
These are some of the books I find useful.
And of course you can find lots of books online.
Try the Biblio(dot)com website and do a search by Keyword for "bicycle".
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11-03-21, 09:12 PM
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Zinn and the art of bike maintenance is a pretty good resource.
11-04-21, 07:43 AM
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+1 Though not sure how the latest edition (which appears to be 2016) might deal with electronic drivetrains, hidden cabling, etc. I wonder if we've seen the last of these, or if a newer edition will ever be published. Starting in 2000, there have been 5 editions, the last in 2016.
11-04-21, 09:37 AM
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summer of 2010 I spent a lot of time hanging around the condo pool reading bike books. every week I went to our local library & got a few. went thru them all. even old ones can be interesting. now if I need a tip on something like adjusting a derailleur I use youtube for the quick answer ... ;-)
11-04-21, 10:18 AM
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I 'had' all those books pictured above. Now, I don't have a single one left and, tbh, I don't really miss them. None of them can help with setting up indexing on a 10sp cluster because, almost to a one, they were published before indexing was even a thing. Adjusting bearing play with cone wrenches?
During Covid I let all my 1984 World Tourist and 1984 Team USA go so I don't have any C&V iron around that needs that kind of TLC. If 4,5 or 6mm Allen wrenches can't handle it ... LBS time. Kidding, actually. I can do most any repair or maintenance with my combination of Park and Nashbar tools from 'back in the day'. For a young wrench starting out in 2021, why, oh why would YouTube or specialist forums not be the go to resource for information and encouragement?
Wrenching on bikes isn't rocket science. Most operations are self explanatory. It usually is so simple you can figure it out by looking at it OR it is so esoteric and counterintuitive that you NEED the kind of insight that you can get in just minutes, if not seconds, watching someone do it on YouTube. Books were all we had in 1977. Books and older wrenches at the bike shop willing to spare some time. Some things don't improve with the passage of time, but, information exchange is not one of them.
I collected all those maintenance and repair titles because I was a book geek. I learned much more by doing, either with friends or solo. I hardly cracked those books. Still, I do like how Sheldon Brown explains a process. You CAN do most anything that needs doing on a bicycle with ONLY Sheldon Brown's website as a resource. I get that there might be a Millenial version of the book geek in 2021. However, I'm not sure the publishing industry has kept up. Someone else would know whether Eugene Sloane's book is being updated. I really think the sources given in earlier posts linking to Park Tools' encyclopedia or the (usually free) community maintenance classes available at most bike co-ops. Those are the 'books' for todays wrench. And we're the better for it, I'd say.
During Covid I let all my 1984 World Tourist and 1984 Team USA go so I don't have any C&V iron around that needs that kind of TLC. If 4,5 or 6mm Allen wrenches can't handle it ... LBS time. Kidding, actually. I can do most any repair or maintenance with my combination of Park and Nashbar tools from 'back in the day'. For a young wrench starting out in 2021, why, oh why would YouTube or specialist forums not be the go to resource for information and encouragement?
Wrenching on bikes isn't rocket science. Most operations are self explanatory. It usually is so simple you can figure it out by looking at it OR it is so esoteric and counterintuitive that you NEED the kind of insight that you can get in just minutes, if not seconds, watching someone do it on YouTube. Books were all we had in 1977. Books and older wrenches at the bike shop willing to spare some time. Some things don't improve with the passage of time, but, information exchange is not one of them.
I collected all those maintenance and repair titles because I was a book geek. I learned much more by doing, either with friends or solo. I hardly cracked those books. Still, I do like how Sheldon Brown explains a process. You CAN do most anything that needs doing on a bicycle with ONLY Sheldon Brown's website as a resource. I get that there might be a Millenial version of the book geek in 2021. However, I'm not sure the publishing industry has kept up. Someone else would know whether Eugene Sloane's book is being updated. I really think the sources given in earlier posts linking to Park Tools' encyclopedia or the (usually free) community maintenance classes available at most bike co-ops. Those are the 'books' for todays wrench. And we're the better for it, I'd say.
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11-04-21, 01:44 PM
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+1 Though not sure how the latest edition (which appears to be 2016) might deal with electronic drivetrains, hidden cabling, etc. I wonder if we've seen the last of these, or if a newer edition will ever be published. Starting in 2000, there have been 5 editions, the last in 2016.
11-05-21, 12:07 AM
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cyccommute is correct about books being quickly outdated with respect to the vast & swift changes in technology that have occured in the past 35 to 40 years.
HOWEVER, that 338 page GLENN'S COMPLETE BICYCLE MANUAL (published 1973) .....the cover with the white socks riding a early seventies Schwinn Continental is the ORIGINAL version which saw some twenty-plus printings during the '73 to '76 era, and probably sold in the millions of copies. **** IN MY OPINION, THIS IS THE SINGLE BEST BICYCLE BOOK FOR ANYONE WITH ANY TYPE OF BICYCLE MANUFACTURED BETWEEN 1935 and 1975 ****
=====You Can Obtain An Approximate $5 free shipping used ex-library book version of GLENN's COMPLETE BICYCLE MANUAL from either of the several huge Used Mega-Booksellers on Ebay. Why do you wanna look at only from those Mega booksellers is because they routinely sell hundreds of thousands of books so they are able to ship said used book for almost nothing, which is why they still make decent money at ~ $5 with free shipping, while an individual ebayer like Joe Bob or Betty Lou probably won't be able to ship their own used copy for that price......so why pay more when so many copies were printed during the Seventies........ The UPDATED 1987 version with the other cover with different color photo, only offers about ten to twelve years of technology beyond 1974, so it still won't have more than thirty years of advances since... Like cyccocommute mentioned, you are gonna need to seek out another avenue for specific details for the period beyond when Carbon became king and things evolved faster than ever before. THE GLENN'S COMPLETE BICYCLE MANUAL is the best for every bicycle before 1975. Wealth of information on Coaster brakes, 2 speed kickbacks, 3 speeds, 5 speeds, 10 speeds..... If you're gonna have any really ancient bicycles in your collection, then you certainly will benefit from having the 338 page GLENN'S COMPLETE BICYCLE MANUAL (c) 1973 on your reference bookshelf UNLESS YOU SCAN IT PAGE BY PAGE ON TO DISC for Your Own Use.
(thrift.books 99.3% Aurora IL) has several copies
https://www.ebay.com/itm/143806934096
here is another https://www.ebay.com/itm/274743279890
HOWEVER, that 338 page GLENN'S COMPLETE BICYCLE MANUAL (published 1973) .....the cover with the white socks riding a early seventies Schwinn Continental is the ORIGINAL version which saw some twenty-plus printings during the '73 to '76 era, and probably sold in the millions of copies. **** IN MY OPINION, THIS IS THE SINGLE BEST BICYCLE BOOK FOR ANYONE WITH ANY TYPE OF BICYCLE MANUFACTURED BETWEEN 1935 and 1975 ****
=====You Can Obtain An Approximate $5 free shipping used ex-library book version of GLENN's COMPLETE BICYCLE MANUAL from either of the several huge Used Mega-Booksellers on Ebay. Why do you wanna look at only from those Mega booksellers is because they routinely sell hundreds of thousands of books so they are able to ship said used book for almost nothing, which is why they still make decent money at ~ $5 with free shipping, while an individual ebayer like Joe Bob or Betty Lou probably won't be able to ship their own used copy for that price......so why pay more when so many copies were printed during the Seventies........ The UPDATED 1987 version with the other cover with different color photo, only offers about ten to twelve years of technology beyond 1974, so it still won't have more than thirty years of advances since... Like cyccocommute mentioned, you are gonna need to seek out another avenue for specific details for the period beyond when Carbon became king and things evolved faster than ever before. THE GLENN'S COMPLETE BICYCLE MANUAL is the best for every bicycle before 1975. Wealth of information on Coaster brakes, 2 speed kickbacks, 3 speeds, 5 speeds, 10 speeds..... If you're gonna have any really ancient bicycles in your collection, then you certainly will benefit from having the 338 page GLENN'S COMPLETE BICYCLE MANUAL (c) 1973 on your reference bookshelf UNLESS YOU SCAN IT PAGE BY PAGE ON TO DISC for Your Own Use.
(thrift.books 99.3% Aurora IL) has several copies
https://www.ebay.com/itm/143806934096
here is another https://www.ebay.com/itm/274743279890
Last edited by Vintage Schwinn; 11-05-21 at 12:27 AM.
11-05-21, 12:52 AM
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The C.A.B.E. has a huge brain-trust over there with specific knowledge on ancient bicycles that you might not find anywhere else!
Really old Schwinn folks might find these somewhat useful:
https://thecabe.com/forum/threads/sc...olume-1.81415/
https://thecabe.com/forum/threads/sc...olume-2.81579/
Really old Schwinn folks might find these somewhat useful:
https://thecabe.com/forum/threads/sc...olume-1.81415/
https://thecabe.com/forum/threads/sc...olume-2.81579/
11-05-21, 01:49 AM
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I've had the one in the pic since '93 or so and I still use it, it just doesn't cover some of the newer stuff like disc brakes and pressfit bb's but I don't really need it for that. If I were to buy a new book it would be the Park. Having a book on hand when working on a bike is more convenient than having to go back and forth to a computer with grimy hands.
11-05-21, 02:42 PM
#15
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Youtube videos are great. They're almost as good as as being guided by an experienced mechanic at a co-op. But I have to recommend Anybody's Bike Book Tom Cuthbertson, et al., which is available from a number of 'net sites for free reading.
11-06-21, 05:04 PM
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For older bikes I have a copy of the Glenn's manual Blinky pictured above.
I found it at a used book store (Bookmans in Phoenix, AZ) and they price their books on the first page. As the lady was opening the manual to get the price, the binding just dissolved and most of the pages broke free (old book). She ended up letting me have it for $2.
I punched holes in it when I got home and put the pages in a 3 ring binder. No problem!
https://bookmans.com/
I found it at a used book store (Bookmans in Phoenix, AZ) and they price their books on the first page. As the lady was opening the manual to get the price, the binding just dissolved and most of the pages broke free (old book). She ended up letting me have it for $2.
I punched holes in it when I got home and put the pages in a 3 ring binder. No problem!https://bookmans.com/
