Bikes Store-4U

Zinn and the Art of Mountain Bike Maintenance Lennard Zinn explains that it doesn’t take special skills to learn how to care for one’s bike, only “a passion for spreading new grease on old parts.” Clearly, his ambition is to share with newcomers the Zen-like joy of bike maintenance. But it’s seasoned bike mechanics that should be tripping over each other for a copy of this comprehensive and ambitious manual. Zinn differs from other how-to books by guiding readers–with plain-speaking text–through almost every imaginable repair on almost every imaginable part. He covers everything from rebuilding hubs, to loosening seized stems, to installing six different types of bottom brackets. He even risks cycling blasphemy by walking mere mortals through the art of wheel building–an intimidating task that can take years to perfect. Although best suited for the old pros, his guide is user- friendly, funny, and essential to anyone willing to love their bike. –Ben Tiffany
Customer Review: Dissapointed
I’ve heard so much about the book I figured I’d have to get it. When I finally read through it I was dissapointed to find no new info and cheap hand drawn illustration. For anyone who wrenches on a large assortment of bikes I recommend the Hanes Manual on Mountain bikes. It has blow by blow pictures just like their car manuals and it’s cheaper.
Customer Review: Organized, Concise and Thorough
As a beginner home mechanic (despite riding mountain bikes for the past 18 years) I found this book to have a very organized approach. I particularly appreciate the grading of repair/maintenance so you will know how difficult a job will be before beginning. This book will essentially be free from the money you saved after a skipping a couple of tune ups at the shop and doing it yourself. It seems amazingly current with the latest equipment even though it was published a few years back. I highly recommend this book to all recreational riders. Nice hand drawn diagrams, I prefer this reference to the other one I bought with photos due to the organization and the exploded views that photos cannot replace.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 28th, 2009 at 4:32 pm and is filed under Books. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.