The Complete Bike Book Review

The world of cycling can be very confusing. There’s so much to understand and comprehend ~ it’s not just about get on a bike and ride anymore. There’s fit, and sizing, and road bike, and mountain bike or fitness bike or hybrid bike. If you’re planning to do organized rides for charity or race it’s definitely not just about riding your bike anymore ~ it’s about training.

All of these things can be confusing enough on their own ~ but when you mix in the fact that just about everyone has an opinion on the subject, and generally there can be a wide range of varience in those opinions it can get a little overwhelming.

When I get overwhelmed ~ I get books. That’s just who I am. Yesterday I picked up a couple new bike books, one of which I couldn’t put down last night and want to tell you about today.

Complete Bike Book

The Complete Bike Book is a pretty cool book. It’s almost a coffee table book ~ the illustrations and photography are gorgeous, but there is a TON of information in this book.  If you are a newbie cyclist and want to get some information in your head to get things straightened out this book is great. It is not an in depth book on any one subject, but gives you excellent concise information on just about everything you would want to know about cycling.

Cycling History

It starts off with a brief history of cycling, as well as bicycles themselves. It moves from there to all the basics of getting started cycling. This includes buying a bike ~ this 2 page spread offers information on which type of bike you should get depending on your goals and biking aspirations, as well as information about different seats, all the elements on the bike. What I particularly liked about the buying a bike section is the concise chart that outlines how to choose the right frame size. This chart offers easy to read and understand information on a variety of different formats used when looking at frame size ~ which is something I was totally confused about, now I’m quite a bit more and clear and have a decent idea of what I’m looking for. This is very helpful when looking on places like Craigslist.

Getting Started

From there it moves on through other topics related to getting started, like riding skills, how to teach kids to ride a bike, riding on the road, and off road and more.

Anatomy of a Bike

From there it got even more interesting for me. I’ve been trying to figure out the differences between all the different kinds of bikes, all the geometry etc. This book has a 2 page layout for each different type/style of bike that explains the differences in very easy to understand language. I’m finally feeling like I’m understanding the basic concepts of cycling.

Improve Your Cycling Skills

From there it moves more toward how to be a better cyclist, providing information on adjusting positions, braking and changing gears, how to corner on flats as well as hairpin turns, and so much more technique related stuff. It was a lot of information. I was glad I had looked at it as today I found I was dealing with turns and some of the information I had read last night came in very handy. These topics are all covered for not only road riding but off road riding as well.

Health and Training

The next section of the Complete Bike Book is health and fitness. This is where I got pretty excited. I’ve been looking for a training program that was easy enough for even a beginner like me to understand. That’s exactly what I found in this book. A basic program that’s outlined in easy to understand language, and looks like something I can even accomplish. There is also and intermediate and advanced training program outlined.

Competitive Cycling

The next section is all about competitive cycling. Here it goes into information about all different aspects of competitive cycling, including road racing skills, triathlon skills, competing on road, and off and much more.  Like I said, this is not a thorough training manual for any one thing, but will give you a nice overview of all the topics so you can get a handle on if it’s something you might be interested in or not.

Bike Maintenance

The next section is very handy ~ and well written. It is the Maintaining your bike section. This section provides brief, but thorough instructions to walk you through most all the bike maintenance you will need to know. It starts off by discussing the tools you will need, and goes on from the very simple, how to clean your bike to adjusting cables and servicing open bearing hub and everything in between. The bike maintenance pages alone are well worth the price of the book.

I’d say The Complete Bike Book lives up to its name in the fact it gives you a little bit of information about just about everything you need to cycle these days. If you’re looking for more in depth information on any given topic this probably isn’t the right book, but if you just need basic information to get you to a point where you understand what everyone else is talking about ~ this is it!