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(NOTE: If you do not find that bicycle repair is enjoyable, save yourself the trouble and PLEASE support your local bicycle repair shop)When building a couple bicycles, I have trusted this book as the human voice when following the overly optimistic manuals provided by manufactures. And there are often tips for the less popular products. One minor qualm is I occasionally run into mis-captioned photos in the steps. I was surprised to find a lot of useful information for my early, mid, and late 70's road bikes. This is their main go to book. The trouble shooting portions at the end of the how-to articles are invaluable - especially if you truly wish to remedy 99% of the problems encountered with building and maintaining your own bike.
These typos were easily deciphered.I should add that my friends runs a bike repair co-op. I bought this book as a resource for repairing my newer MTB. The information is very detailed and specific to individual popular manufacturer's products. I'd pay 4x the price for this book.
It has great reviews, but I don't think it's that great.It seems unorganized too. It has NO color pictures. I wish I would have went the the "Big Blue Book of Bike repair", although I admit I have not seen it to KNOW it's better that this.Conclusion: I wish I had went with another book. This bike repair book is good, don't get me wrong, but there was much to be desired.It has a lot of good information, but it doesn't have ALL information. I didn't feel like the pictures were matching up with the text on step by step instructions. I'm reading it, and i'm not sure what type of brakes they are talking about in the brakes chapter.
After years of taking bicycles to the shop for tune-ups and upgrades, and not having a shop nearby, I decided to investigate the idea of "self repair" a little more. This book has made mountain biking even more enjoyable for me. I have always thought it would be so much easier to perform my own bicycle maintenance but never took the effort to look into a "how to" book. This book is what I needed to get the ball rolling and as the title states, this is a complete guide for at home repairs and then some.
it cover everything from the very simple basic things up to some complicated things. the knowledge is good and is pretty easy to follow as well. the book is a few steps above basic maintenance. it tells you how some stuff is done, even things that your bike shop should do but it helsp to know what has to be doen so they dont rip you off.
The only downside is that is doesn't cover older parts. This is a great book, very thorough, with great pictures. I deal with a lot of bikes build pre 1980, so I occasionally come across something that this book no longer covers.
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