Complete Bike Maintenance [Paperback]

Fred Milson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 8, 2002

This third generation of The Bike Book has been designed to help you get the very best from your bike. Produced by Motorbooks International, it gives step-by-step guidance on all aspects of bike care. It has been revised and updated extensively to include 300 new photos covering the latest develpments in cycling technology. These include vee and disc brakes, nine speed, Rapid Rise and SRAM gears, and front and rear suspension. Packed with practical information and handy tips covering almost every bike built over the last thirty years, The Bike Book gives riders the confidence and knowledge required to tackle regular maintenance, repairs, or even a major overhaul.

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: MVP Books (August 8, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 076031330X
• ISBN-13: 978-0760313305
• Product Dimensions: 10.5 x 8.2 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,067,881 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Better than Zinn for most, August 1, 2004

By 

D.B.K. "dbkinstc" (ST CHARLES, MO USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Complete Bike Maintenance (Paperback)

While I think that the Zinn book (Zinn and the Art of Mountain Bike Maintenance) is pretty good, for most people this book will be much better. It is concise yet thorough, with plenty of detail, but not overly technical. And the book is filled with excellent color photographs -- hundreds of them.

I took a couple of bicycle repair classes last winter at a local bike shop. Then, many months later, I decided to put what I had learned to good use by adjusting my derailleurs. I grabbed the Zinn book I had purchased last year for a quick reminder of how to make that adjustment. It didn't make any sense. His procedure was too complicated, his description confusing, and he didn't even talk about the obvious trick to setting the low gear position on the rear derailleur. I set the book aside and fumbled my way through the procedure from what I could remember from the class. I was not satisfied with my results.

Then, while at a local bookstore recently, I saw "Complete Bike Maintenance" by Fred Milson sitting on the shelf. I took a gander to see if it had a better explanation of the adjustment procedure. As soon as I opened the book, I was grabbed by the beautiful color photography. I located the sections on adjusting derailleurs. Mr. Milson has described the adjustment in a few simple steps, and his description was very similar to what I remember from the class.

I immediately bought the book and readjusted my gears the following weekend. They came out great! My only complaint is that there should have been one more photograph for the rear derailleur setup -- one showing a view from the rear with the two jockey wheels lined up with the smallest sprocket. The written description gets you there just fine, but there was room on the page for one more picture.

All of the other chapters appear to be just as good -- great pictures, easy to understand text. I can't believe I'm the first person to write a review for this excellent repair manual.

I'll hang on the the Zinn book for reference (you can't own too many reference books), but Complete Bike Maintenance will be the first book I will grab when heading out to work on my bike.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Just not enough info..., August 6, 2005

By 

BillJitsu (SF Bay Area) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Complete Bike Maintenance (Paperback)

After having looked around some more at other bicycle repair manuals, I have re-evaluated my review of this book and decided, quite frankly, that it's not very good.

To be fair - the book does a decent job of explaining how to do "maintenance", but just not much in the way of repair. I was continually frustrated by the many jobs that are delegated to a "professional repair shop", particularly those involving headsets and wheels. True, these parts do require certain special tools to install and adjust properly, but it would have been nice if the author had made the effort to empower people a little more, and show them how to use the tools if they have them. After all, part of the reason someone buys a book like this is to save money by not taking the bike to a shop for every little thing that goes wrong.

The book does have a lot of decent color photography, but is still lacking in in-depth explanations and instruction. Rather than trying to be an in-depth resource, the book is more of a glorified owners manual for a bike, explaining the basics of most parts of the bike, but still not giving you enough info to inspire the confidence and guidance you need.

I think this bike is only really good for the novice bicyclist who only wants to do the bare minimum on his or her bike, and needs some pictures to help out. However, if you want to fully understand how your bicycle works, and the best ways to repair it, you need to look elsewhere.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Incomplete, unclear and outdated, December 30, 2008

By 

George Sopp (Fullerton, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Complete Bike Maintenance (Paperback)

First a quote from page 50 on adjusting the rear derailleur:

"...check that the chain runs silently in top-gear. If it doesn't turn the cable adjuster ... counter-clockwise if the chain is trying to jump off the top sprocket, and one turn clockwise if it's trying to climb onto the second sprocket.
" Next, change down to second gear..."

Let's see, he equates "top-gear" to "top sprocket" and the top gear, of course, is the smallest sprocket on the rear cassette. Okay, we're fine so far but it would be more complete to also instruct to put the front derailleur on the largest chain ring, which is required.

And then he says to change to "second gear"? Doesn't he mean the second sprocket? To most people "second gear" means the second easiest, which is the second largest sprocket on the rear cassette. What he means is the second smallest sprocket.

For a book written to people trying to learn, this is unclear at best. Unfortunately, the many color photos do not help here. None of this is labeled on the figures.

He also spends more attention on toe straps (who uses toe straps?) than clipless pedals (cleats). There are many types of cleats and he just does a broad brush treatment of them. The text is outdated.

I also got a Zinn book at the same time. (Got them both but was expecting the Zinn book to be over my head.) My what a difference. The text is complete and clear. I agree with the bike champion that was quoted, "Leonard Zinn has a knack for describing mechanical tasks that a person with little or no mechanical background will find easy to understand."