Anybody's Bike Book

Rating:
Summary: Dated, not very helpful,
Review: "Anybody's Bike Book" is very dated, which would be fine if the information contained within were more helpful. It seriously lacks diagrams. For example, rear deraileur adjustment "section" merits one and a half pages. There are no diagrams, nor is there strong guidance on which adjustment screw you should adjust and in what direction.

There are much better books out there.

Rating:
Summary: Thanks Tom!
Review: I bought my first copy of this book back in 1974 at the age of 14, and proceeded to tear every part of my bike apart, and more importantly, successfully put it back together! I recently began riding again, and the first thing I did was to buy the newest edition, and proceeded to tear apart my bike again! This book makes it fun to work on bikes! In fact, once I had finished completely overhauling it, I was a little bummed because all that is left to do now is to ride it...

The bood is well written, funny, informative, and covers almost everything. I highly recommend it to anyone who owns a bike and is interested in learning to maintain it!

Rating:
Summary: Fun reading but not a very good repair manual
Review: I really liked Anybody's Book but I didn't like it that much too. Although this sounds a little double minded, let me explain. Mr.Cuthbertson writes in a very down to earth style and adds stories and personal views about fixing the bicycle. He troubleshoots each part of the bike and offers a solution on how to fix each occurance. Not a bad idea, but the book is very low on illustrations. The drawings are fun to look at and are entertaining, but are of little use in actually reparing your bike. You must rely strongly on his writen descriptions of the problems rather than seeing illustration representing the tasks. Why do so many bike repair books skimp on the most important aspect of teaching someone to repair a bike, which are the photos and illustrations? I don't know either. My guess is that these authors are masters at being mechanics and fail to realize that not everyone is in their league. They may understand what they mean, but does the common person? The title is not accurate as it is not really "anybody's bike book", but rather, a bike book geared (no pun intended) to the mechanically inclined. I would rate this an entertaining read at 4 stars, but as a repair manual, it only rates a two. Overall rating: 3

Rating:
Summary: Cuthbertson helps you figure it out
Review: I've left Cuthbertson handy in my bathroom for the past 6 months. In that time, during spare moments, I've learned how almost everything on my bicycle works. It helped me immensely to break down the component groups into easily understood functions such as "drivetrain" -- and after all, why should understanding how a bicycle goes together be any more difficult than understanding how an internal combustion automobile goes together? When things get too ginchey, that seems to be the right spot for one of Morall's pen-and-ink sketches to show up. (My favorite is illustration 11-10, depicting the parts of a down-tube control lever, painstakingly sketched, and labeled as per the text as "thingamabob," "doodad," and "mounting bolt." ... Of course, the point was how fiendishly complicated such an arrangement can be.) The information is clearly presented, and differentiated among mountain, road, and "cruiser" bikes. I'll be moving the book down to my shop this week! :->

Rating:
Summary: Very informative
Review: This book has all of the information that I will probably ever need to keep my bike working in perfect condition. However, it has only a handful of "drawing"-type illustrations. I need lots of pictures in a how-to book...especially one that is so technical.

Rating:
Summary: Nobody's Bike Book
Review: This book is not so hot. The cartoonish illustrations do not help one bit. If you really want to fix your bike get How To Rock And Roll by Sam Tracy.