The Bicycling Guide to Complete Bicycle Maintenance & Repair: For Road & Mountain Bikes (Bicycling Guide to Complete Bicycle Maintenance & Repair for Road & Mountain Bikes)

The book provides adequate descriptions of most basic maintenance and repair issues but the images and diagrams are of such poor resolution that they are virtually USELESS, even on an iPad with retina display and iPhone 5. I purchased this digital edition, instead of a book format like the Park Big Blue Book, so that I could have a smaller format to take with me when I bike. All of the images are fuzzy and difficult or impossible to view adequately to be of any use. It would have been so easy to have high quality images, but obviously the author and publisher don't care. There must be better alternatives out there, so keep looking, because you will regret this purchase if you like visual representations to help guide you in your repairs and maintenance.

My comments relate only to the electronic download version, not the printed copy. While the written info might be good, the VERY small photos are nearly useless. I am not sure the file I downloaded was properly converted from the written version and perhaps something happened to minimize the instructional photos. I would return it if I could and buy the printed version.

I bought the Kindle version, which is horribly formatted. References to illustrations not where they should be, etc. Also, poor linking within the book made it difficult to find specific topics, or subtopics quickly. A lot of time was wasted just searching for what I wanted to know about.

When I found the information, often it was too vague or poorly explained. Example: The discussion on different types of bottom brackets and how to maintain or replace them. I learned about the evolution of bottom brackets and about the new R & D of bottom brackets, which is OK information, but I never figured out from this chapter what kind of bottom bracket my bike has. The explanation came short of describing my bracket (which is not uncommon). Illustrations or pictures showing some of the types and/or brands of bottom brackets to clarify the text, basically are non-existent. It's frustrating spending a lot of time searching and reading a book and then not find the answers to my questions. Time is too precious to waste.

Here is my opinion of this and some other books that I've seen lately. Writers and/or publishers are in too big of a hurry to get their books done and published so as to start making money. They spend far too little time developing and constructing a really thorough and useful instruction tool for people like Joe Consumer who want and need it. If authors would read and re-read, and think and re-think about what they wrote and what ways they could improve their books for public use, and then have them edited and evaluated by knowledgeable sources, and then go back and back again and again and make needed changes, then they would have a complete body of knowledge on a subject, properly structured and formatted for public use.

I must be old fashioned, but that is what we used to expect from a book of this sort. Notice the title of this book "The Bicycling Guide to Complete Bicycle Maintenance & Repair for Road & Mountain Bikes". That word "Complete" should be removed from the title.

I don't doubt that the author knows his stuff, and I'm not saying that this book doesn't have a lot of good and useful information, but it is a long way from being complete, and the formatting also has a lot to be desired, particularly the Kindle version.

I returned my Kindle copy for a refund.

While this is not the end all repair and maintenance guide it does provide a lot of information. Bicycles have become somewhat specialized and with the advent of youTube and Google there is much more detailed and specific information to be found than what could be contained within the covers of a book without the book becoming a monster. More than the detailed information the book does provide a lot of history of different materials, components and bicycle making in general. It was an enjoyable read from that standpoint alone.

The Bicycling Guide to Complete Bicycle Maintenance & Repair for Road & Mountain Bikes [Kindle Edition] by Todd Downs is the best bicycle maintenance book or manual I have found and purchased. I own several bicycles and want to do my own maintenance and if one does, this is in my view the book to own. I also own a Motorcycle and much of the information and knowledge based skills utilized in this book are also good for a thorough maintenance approach to the mechanical maintenancre of a motorcycle. From the basic introduction of the book to the tool recommendations you read at the first of the book, you know you are getting a book that avoids the fluff and gets right to solid information about bicycle maintenance. I love this book and recommend it to the person needing some guidance to working on their bikes and optimization of the setup of your ride.

I am a complete beginner to maintaining my own bicycle. The book did guide me through changing out a very cheap bottom bracket with a higher quality cartridge type BB. I also learned how to change out my crank set.

I bought the Kindle Edition and it was inexpensive but the graphics were hard to zoom - that could be the device/OS used to run the book.

I should have ponied up the extra money for the printed book. Other than that this book got a complete amateur through a crank set and bottom bracket change with no problem.

Not recommended for e-readers (Paper version may be okay?)

PRO

A lot of useful detailed information
Data seems current and mostly complete

CON

Bought it as an e-book and found the images are not clear on an iPAD or Kindle Paperwhite
This is a major fault as a bike repair ebook needs to be near the bike you are working on and the iPAD and Kindle should be large enough to see and understand.
Even on an 27" iMac the book images are too small to see well and Mac is not in garage near bike

SUMMARY

Good read ... poor product for e-readers (iPAD, iPhone, Kindle)

Fix images and allow for larger clearer images and I would give the e-book at least 4 stars but for now would not buy again

Not recommended for e-readers (Paper version may be okay?)

PRO

A lot of useful detailed information
Data seems current and mostly complete

CON

Bought it as an e-book and found the images are not clear on an iPAD or Kindle Paperwhite
This is a major fault as a bike repair ebook needs to be near the bike you are working on and the iPAD and Kindle should be large enough to see and understand.
Even on an 27" iMac the book images are too small to see well and Mac is not in garage near bike

SUMMARY

Good read ... poor product for e-readers (iPAD, iPhone, Kindle)

Fix images and allow for larger clearer images and I would give the e-book at least 4 stars but for now would not buy again

Explanations are very good, but in the kindle version photos are very small and when you try to open them directly (in the telephone or tablet) the resolution it's quite poor...

This is much more up-to-date than my Clymer "Fix Your Bicycle" manual, but that was written in the '70s, and the technology has advanced some since then... though not a lot.

Be that as it may, the proofreading for this Kindle edition (maybe even the printed ed.) is far inferior. I started to make "notes" to try to explain (to myself & others) that 181/4" actually means 18x1/4" or eighteen 1/4 inch ball bearings, rather than 181/4", which would be about 45.25". Sloppiness like that may be forgivable in a romance paperback, but it makes life difficult when trying to understand a repair manual.

Yes, I can make allowances for missing "spaces", and I have... but, I don't like it, especially when they happen as often as they do in this manual. I gave up "making notes". As I suggested, this is just sloppy editing. I'm pretty sure that there is "NO EDITING" in this day and age, as we all fall into the morass of "blogging", "texting", and "Instant Messaging" with their attendant shortened (mis)spellings and general lack of grammar and punctuation. That's all cool, especially the entertaining abbreviations like IMHO, ROTFLMAO, etc., but it does not belong in a repair manual. But, I digress.

Standard Disclaimers Apply; I haven't read the whole manual, but I am, so far, disappointed in its lack of professionalism. The author may know how to wrench on a bike (He seems to "know his stuff"), but he ain't no Shakespeare (bad analogy... I can't understand Shakespeare, either). You need to know that this is a poorly edited manual with many "typos" and other problems. Is it worth $10? We-e-l-l-l... I kinda' agree with the reviewer that said you can get better info online... for free... but be careful... you can get much worse info online, too. I like Sheldon Brown's website [...], too, though it's a bit difficult to find what you want there. Wha-a-a-t? Vietnamese women? WTF?

Lor'nce (aka Buellist, aka Konservativ Anarkist)