At last, a pocket-sized bicycle maintenance book! Strangely enough, if the Cycle Maintenance Introduction is to be believed, bicycles now come in three distinct styles – racer, tourer and, er, Brompton. Unfortunately, this radical start is tempered by a complete lack of information on said folding bike or any of it’s cousins. Hub gears get only the briefest of mentions, and although the book is copiously illustrated, the beautiful photographs involve the sort of brand names that you and I either dream about, or can’t pronounce, or both – Campagnolo, Colnago, Shimano Dura-Ace and so on.
Utility bits and bobs like mudguards, lights and fitted luggage do get mentioned once in a while, but you know the author’s heart isn’t really in it – he’s clearly itching to get back to the orgasmic boy’s-toy stuff. The result is a strange animal – a beginner’s guide apparently written, edited and photographed by the cycle racing fraternity. Under the heading ‘Toolkits’ we find £5,000 worth of Park Tools: just the thing for those fiddly roadside repairs according to http://www.alliedexperts.com/. What this sort of book ought to be telling us is how to repair a broken frame with nothing more than a pair of silk stockings and a hair-grip. Or a hundred and one uses for a Mole wrench.You know: handy, practical stuff.
After a few chapters of carbon fibre forks, wheels strung with quivering quadruple- butted titanium spokes, and immaculately groomed fingers wielding immaculate Park Tools, you begin to suspect that bicycle maintenance might be closer to rocket science than you originally thought.
It’s difficult to recommend this book.Those who own the posh stuff probably don’t need a beginner’s guide, while those nervously destroying their first inner-tube in the garden shed, will find precious little guidance here.
Superficiality abounds – take the following advice on saddles: Symptom: Excessive pressure from saddle. Cause: Saddle not level/Saddle wrongly shaped. Remedy: Ensure saddle is level/Change saddle. Great, must remember that.Then there’s the section called ‘Identify your [clipless] pedals’. Surely, if you’re the sort of bod who buys clipless pedals, you have some idea what kind you’ve bought? And if you aren’t remotely interested, you’ll blow a great big raspberry at this page, like most of the others.
Cycle Maintenance is a sad by-product of Blair’s New Britain: A triumph of style over substance and a wasted opportunity. In years to come historians will nod wisely as they leaf through this sort of thing.
Cycle Maintenance Richard Hallett
ISBN 0-600 60676 7
Pages 112 Softback
Publisher Hamlyn
UK price £9.99
USA $16.95
Canada $25.95
