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the park tool big blue book of bicycle repair. calvin jones $24.95

big blue book of bicycle repair

my apologies to those who are still standing in the bike shed with the bike upside down on the saddle avidly waiting for the post about changing gear cables (or gear wires as the wholesalers prefer you to ask for). i'm apologising because i'm not going to talk about that this week - and shame on those in the background who cheered.

we're still on the mechanical side of cycling however, since into my possession has come the latest from the park tool company 'the big blue book of bicycle repair' and it seemed only fair to let you know what it's like and whether it's the very thing for you. park tools are imported into the uk by cycling monolith, madison imports, though they seem to prefer to be known as ultimatepursuits.co.uk these days. not renowned for their alacrity of distributorship on any of the brands they represent, my review copy had to come from the states because there appear to have been none in this country at the time. or at least none outside of madison's warehouse.

the book is available via amazon.com but i couldn't find any reference to it on amazon.co.uk nor could i find its availability form any of the park tool stockists in the uk. american readers can also order it directly from park's website.

availability aside, is it worth it. very probably. for experienced and/or professional mechanics it's probably not top of the list of essential purchases, but for the rest of us i think it's a pretty good buy.

stateside price is one cent under 25 dollars, though that unfortunately doesn't follow that the uk price will reflect the current low dollar equivalent of around 14 pounds. It won't replace barnett's manual (for those unfamiliar, this is a seriously comprehensive repair manual designed for shop use and the offshoot of barnetts school for bicycle mechanics in the usa. i have a rather dated copy of this in the armoury and it does darned near everything short of the actual repair itself, but it does cost substantially more than big blue).

as can be seen from the page shot below, the information is well set out, with decent colour pictures and, in almost every case, a list of the tools required to carry out the procedure being discussed. naturally enough, since the book is published by the park tool company, all the tools listed are those manufactured by same, but they do at east have the decency to describe whether the procedure can be carried out by brute force and ignorance, or with just basic tools that anyone might have in their shed. big blue has also had the foresight not to simply concentrate on products from the big s when it comes to raod bikes, and vicenza gets a look in as well.

big blue book of bicycle repair

on this latter point, however, big blue differs on the official method of index adjustment on campagnolo drivetrains. the official line is to place the chain on the middle sprocket at the rear and make gear adjustment from there. shimano generally reckon on this working from the smallest sprocket and shifting to the next one up and this is the recommendation from big blue for both systems. personally, i have had very little success with the official campag method, so i'm quite happy to go with big blue.

as an example, removal of the the fork crown race is described using the park crp1, which costs a rather mystifying 108 uk pounds, but then book then goes on to point out that if you turn the fork upside down, you can hammer your way round the base of the crown race with a large screwdriver (which is pretty much what i do anyway) and the same result should ensue. it is worth noting, however, that since many quality road bikes have carbon forks costing several hundred pounds, being careful with the screwdriver is pretty much mandatory, and may well be a case for purchasing the correct tool from park. or you could just pop round to your local bike shop - always assuming, of course, that you do have a local bike shop. going back to my rather ancient copy of barnetts manual, many bicycle repair methods and techniques never go out of fashion, but unfortunately for bike mechanics, components change more often than frank vandenbroucke changes teams. because of this, things that you learned to do a few years ago, are now obsolete. how many of you have had cause to replace bearings in a cup and cone bottom bracket recently? how many folks need a fixed cup spanner these days? headset spanner anyone?

what i'm saying is that by end of this year or midway through next, some of this book will be out of date because shimano will have done away with disc brakes and replaced them with reverse jet thrusters (ok, so i made that bit up, but you catch my drift). barnetts have got round this problem by offering a subscription service to all purchasers of volume 5, with cd roms being sent out whenever a significant upgrade to any technique or piece of equipment becomes necessary. and apparently the cdrom will contain the entire manual plus the updates. still, it's a problem that faces publishers of computer manuals too, and doesn't seem to deter them, so maybe it's more of a perceived problem rather than an actual problem. it seems likely that big blue will be purchsed by home mechanics wishing to improve their knowledge or by aspiring professionals who'd like to know where to start. there is also a comprehensive tool list at the end of the book enabling existing or prospective mechanics to know just what they need to furnish the well equipped workshop.

for the information within, and the fact that it's written by calvin jones (olympic mechanic, team mechanic and senior instructor for park tool) it is exceptionally good value for money. it's even worth it to find out which tools should be used for which job. for those in the uk, both wiggle.co.uk and settlecycles.co.uk provide park tools by mail order from their respective websites and free postage too.

buy it.

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by the way, i've already had promises of photos for the velo club d'ardbeg web page, so just a reminder: if you've bought an ardbeg cycle jersey, get a photo of yourself wearing it along with your favourite bike, and we'll put them up on a vcd'a page on the post, before we start hassling the good folks at ardbeg to incorporate similar onto their own website. and remember, the official tea stop and club hut is at the old kiln cafe at ardbeg distillery. wear your jersey anytime you visit. if you missed the ardbeg cycle jerseys, click here for a look see.

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this website got its name because scotland's graeme obree built his championship winning 'old faithful' using bits from a defunct washing machine

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as always, if you have any comments on this nonsense, please feel free to e-mail and thanks for reading.

this column almost never appears in the dead tree version of the ileach but appears, regular as clockwork on this website every two weeks. (ok so i lied) sometimes there are bits added in between times, but it all adds to the excitement.

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previous book reviews

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