Good Bike repair guide

[briansnail]

I am clueless on bike maintenance. I was looking at buying Doris Kindersley's Book on bike maintenance. This struck me as fairly simple Can anyone recommend anything better? Thanks in advance for any replies.

[rjb]

You could check your local library and see what they have before deciding on a purchase.

[axel_knutt]

Dorling Kindersley is a publisher, it appears they publish several bike maintenance books by different authors.

[freeflow]

Go look up the videos on the Park Tools website.

[Jdsk]

Go look up the videos on the Park Tools website.

I'd also recommend Park Tool Repair Help:
https://www.parktool.com/blog/repair-help

and

Sheldon Brown:
https://sheldonbrown.com

I don't recommend beginners to to use YouTube videos unless they're sure that the components in the video match what they have in front of them.

Jonathan

[briansnail]

Thanks .I will also look at the Haynes manual.Sheldon Brown is a genius and is like a University prof.I had a old Raleigh with hub gears that would not shift.Sheldon Brown has a lot on his website.i had it for 20 years but need room for my other bikes.So i took it to the charity shop yesterday.I suspect it would be easy to dismantle but impossible to put back together.My bike shop was not to keen either.

[TheBomber]

There’s some wisdom in matching the age of the book/website to the bike you’re working on. I learnt using a paperback ‘Richard’s Bicycle Book’ which is good for bikes dating from the ‘70s, ‘80s and perhaps ‘90s for some of the later editions. Sheldon Brown was great for era of integrated gear/brakes (‘STI’) but when I needed to know about Di2 recently it was Park Tools that I went to.

[Bonzo Banana]

Shimano's technical documents and professional workshop guides can be very useful and exhaustive so helps prevent you forgetting something important. I looked at their fitting derailleur professional guide recently and was very impressed.

https://si.shimano.com/#/

[freiston]

As well as the advice given above (I am particularly fond of Park Tools videos and the Sheldon Brown website), don't forget to search the posts of this excellent forum. There's some good stuff in this thread: viewtopic.php?t=64417

The trouble with books is that they can't cover all the peculiarities of all the different makes and models of components, and once they're printed, they're not updated. They might give a decent grounding in the generic basics but a couple of videos often make things much more understandable. If you want a book for your bookshelf, then the "Zinn" books are decent but I reckon that once you get in the habit of DIY mechanics, the book will hardly be used.

As always when looking for guidance online, use your discretion and unless you have good reason not to, get info from more than one source.

[Lookrider]

Bonzo has sound advice there for the home/beginner mechanic
I got a used zinn book off Amazon around £3
It is good but just a generalisation
Park videos are great but I keep pausing and stopping
The shimano helping is great as it only applies to uour exact component ...that goes for any other manufacture as they have online advice just for that
I'm not computer savvy and it takes me a while to pin piont the exact page I'm after in shimano docs

[Jdsk]

The shimano helping is great as it only applies to uour exact component ...that goes for any other manufacture as they have online advice just for that
I'm not computer savvy and it takes me a while to pin piont the exact page I'm after in shimano docs

Yes. The documents for Shimano components are excellent but you have to know the ground rules, including the split between instructions "for dealers" and instructions "for users" and "Technical Service Instructions" and parts diagrams.

I'd look on them as being in addition to the sort of advice that I get from Sheldon Brown or Park Tool.

That point about needing to find the precise component is why I don't recommend YouTube videos from unknown sources: if they don't match what you have and you don't know the general principles they could cause problems.

Jonathan