Zinn & the Art of Road Bicycle Maintenance

Book Review by Tom Baker

There’s one category of bike books I’ve rarely liked reading – bicycle repair manuals. They always seem to be outdated and cover basic topics in a way that makes them not really useful. This book is different.

This book is geared towards not only experienced mechanics, but also newcomers to the art and science of bicycle maintenance. This book lands somewhere between the incredibly useful Sutherland’s Handbook for Bicycle Mechanics, by Howard Sutherland, which was able, until recently, to cover essentially every variation in bicycle components for the professional bike mechanic and which I’ve turned to a thousand times in the last 30 years, and the late Tom Cuthbertson’s Anybody’s Bike Book, with its illustrations and good humor that made bike maintenance accessible and fun for everyone.

So who is this book intended for? Nearly the first sentence in the introduction might answer this question – “So you want to maintain your road bike? Although it is nice to learn about your bike from friends or shop employees who know more about bicycles than you do, you don’t want to depend on them for routine maintenance or fixing basic mechanical problem”.

This is a single source of information on the latest equipment – Campy’s 11 speed, Shimano’s Di2 electronic shifting DuraAce, SRAM’s Red shifters and also components most likely to be found on good road bikes. This book doesn’t specifically cover components more likely found on lower quality bikes, but the more generic information would enable one to maintain nearly any road bike.

Chapters 2 and 3 cover basic repairs, the tools needed, and emergency repairs one might find very handy out on the road. So, the basics and some potentially useful emergency repair information are covered and out of the way in these first chapters.

Organization and illustration are key ingredients in making this manual effective. Line drawings throughout make this book a success. The exploded diagrams of bottom brackets, hub and headsets are wonderful. Collected on one page are exploded diagrams of most of the main types of bottom brackets, which helps one identify which one they have and which section to read for the appropriate repair steps.

The maintenance tasks are divided into three levels, which indicate the complexity of the task or proficiency level required and tools required. What it often comes down to in considering whether or not to tackle a repair is the requirement (investment) for tools. Each level requires an ever-increasing level and expense of tools. So it’s easy for someone to identify just what level of task is possible for them, not just by its difficulty, but also by the investment of tools required. This is a great approach.

The rest of the book’s chapters break down into specific, focused instructions on each component of the road bike (chain, brakes, cranks, etc.). Chapter 12 on wheel building is 21 pages of good, straightforward, basic information. It probably isn’t necessary to include any other information on this subject for most mechanics than what’s found here.

There’s also good information in the appendices. These include troubleshooting, gear charts, bike fitting, a glossary of bike terms and torque tables. This is useful information that rounds out the utility of this book.

The heritage and influences on this manual’s format and style are very evident. Lennard has fashioned his manual after these respected works listed in the bibliography: Barnett’s Manual: Analysis and Procedures for Bicycle Mechanics, The Bicycle Wheel, Bicycling Magazine’s Complete Guide to Bicycle Maintenance and Repair, How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive: A Manual of Step-by-Step Procedures for the Complete Idiot, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, The Bicycle Repair Book and others.

Here’s how Lennard begins his section on overhauling Campagnolo Ergopower levers: “This is an extremely satisfying maintenance task. As with any mechanism that has lots of precision internal parts, it can be great fun, if you are in the right state of mind, to take an Ergopower lever all apart, clean it up, put it back together and feel it work more smoothly afterward.”

An example of the utility of the manual is the explanation of the differences between the various versions of Campagnolo Ergopower levers. Exploded drawings of the original 8 speed, later 9 speed and latest Ultra Shift levers not only show the differences, but illustrate how the pieces fit together for re-assembly. If you don’t know which type of lever you have, then once you start to pull it apart, you’ll be able to tell which type you have from the clear drawings and then you can go to the section of instructions specifically written for your version of the lever. The description of how the internal parts of the levers work is great. This information comes from experience, not from reading any Campagnolo tech literature or even listening to a Campagnolo technical seminar presentation. There are 10 pages of information and instructions on Ergopower levers here that aren’t available anywhere else and I really found this useful.

There really is no other bicycle repair manual like this – very up to date, very clear, thanks to the profuse illustrations, accurate and comprehensive. This book essentially takes the place of a collection of several other books, component manufacturer’s assembly sheets and the collective wisdom of years of hands on bicycle maintenance. And it’s all in a very enjoyable format intended to be encouraging and confidence-building.

Overall, this is a valuable collection of information written for a road bike rider who only wants to have one book on bike maintenance that will cover nearly everything that might be needed. I found that Lennard’s writing was un-biased and accurate. There are some topics that could be aided with the fleshing out of more details, like tubular tire repair stitching, various ceramic bearing differences and other perhaps obscure topics. It doesn’t have everything, but at 440 pages, it covers a fair amount of ground.

This book is available from VeloPress for $24.95.

Bicycle shops can order it from Jen Soulé, Sales Manager,

Phone: (800) 811-4210,ext.169
Fax: (303) 444-6788
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