So last week I gave a basic overview of how to fix up a bike, but if you need a little more here are some additional resources for curing what ails your bike. As one DIY repair shop pointed out, “Since it’s your hide that will get injured when the bike falls apart, learn how to repair and maintain the exposed parts yourself. After all, the bike shop won’t be there when your brakes fail in the middle of the Slickrock Trail.”

Sheldon Brown is basically the Kevin Bacon of internet bike info: if you’re searching online for information, you’ll find your way back to his sit usually in fewer than four clicks. Though occasionally confusing to navigate (Sheldon Brown passed away a few years back and the site hasn’t been updated since) it’s a got most things covered.

Park Tool is a manufacturer of bike tools so they have a vested interest in providing you with know-how that serves as incentive to buy their tools. The have awesome tools to back it up (I’m not a spokesperson for them or anything, but their multi-tool and pedal wrench have proved massively useful. The site is designed for the amateur mechanic who has a little bit of technical know-how. Fortunately, there are diagrams.

Though geared towards mountain bikes, Utah Mountain Biking generally has something for everything. Geared towards a novice mechanic, they are the owners of the motto quoted above.

If you still haven’t found what you’re looking for, my ultimate resource is the Zinn series by Leonard Zinn. His titles pun off of “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” and provides fantastic exploded diagrams and easy to understand instructions comprehensive enough to strip a bike down to a bare frame and components and then put it back together again. As a backup, I take this book with me on long trips to make sure I can handle anything that comes up.

Stay tuned next week for how to keep your ride locked up.

Photo Credit: Park Tools