The Urban Biking Handbook: The DIY Guide to Building, Rebuilding, Tinkering with, and Repairing Your Bicycle for City Living

by Charles Haine

Overview

Ever wanted to take a bicycle vacation? Go on a bike date? Convert your beater into a fixie? Or are you just curious about the anthropology of urban cycling culture? The Urban Biking Handbook teaches you the anatomy of your bike, how to dismantle it, how to reassemble it, how to make it pretty, how to make it ugly…and most importantly, how to make it yours. Bike your way through car-jammed cities, under overpasses, and over the hills and far away to a cyclist’s paradise.

- Learn to repair a flat, modify your handlebars, true your wheel, and fix your bike on the fly.

- Not just for gearheads: Learn about what to wear, what to eat, how to pack, and how not to get doored.

- Want to build your own bike? Get started with fully photographed tutorials and inspiration from the bike lovers profiled inside.

Get your bike on with The Urban Biking Handbook!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781610602181
Publisher:	Quarry Books
Publication date:	08/01/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	208
File size:	10 MB

About the Author

Charles Haine has been a bicycle mechanic for over a decade. He learned to fix bikes at a bicycle co-operative at Oberlin College, followed by stints at several bicycle shops in his hometown of Washington, DC, including Blazing Saddles and Citybikes, and time at both the Bike Spot and Bikecology in Los Angeles. He is currently the chairman of the Bicycle Kitchen, a non-profit bicycle education space in Los Angeles, California, where he has also been a volunteer for 7 years. He has taught beginning and advanced bicycle mechanics to countless numbers of both the general public and also other volunteers at the Bicycle Kitchen to help them hone their mechanic skills and better serve the community. In his spare time he gets into arguments about how to properly address brake squeak. Visit him online at http://www.bicyclekitchen.com.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Why Ride Bikes?

Part I: the Ride

1. Choosing your Ride

How-to: New Bike vs. Used Bike

Building a Bike from a Bare Frame

2. City Riding

Security

Parking

The Things They Carry:

Choosing a Bag

Choosing Your Footwear

Fenders

Riding in Traffic

How-to: Hop a Curb

Riding with a Group

Getting Doored

Scrapes and Crashes

3. Urban Outfitting

Bike Clothing

Tools

Safety

4. Customization

Getting in the Saddle

How-to: Set Your Seat Height and Angle

Handlebars

How-to: Hack Your Bars

How-to: Change Your Drop Bars for Flat Bars

How-to: Citify a Mountain Bike

Painting Your Bike

Painted and Customized: An Idea Gallery

5. The Car-Free Lifestyle

Starting Small: A Car-Free Week

How-to: Go on a Bicycle Date

Taking a Cycling Vacation

Part II: The Bicycle

6. Bicycle Anatomy

Frame

Thread and Thread Direction

Cable Actuation

Bearings

The Locknut

Drive Train

Braking

How-to: Adjust Your Brakes

How-to: Get Rid of Brake Squeak

Steering

Sizing

7. Frames

Frame Materials

Frame Construction

Geometry

Suspension

Framework: An Idea Gallery

8. Tires, Tubes, and Wheels

Tire Components

Evaluating Tires

Clinchers vs. Tubulars vs. Tubeless

Inner Tubes

Tire Pressure

How-to: Fix a Flat

Wheel Components

How-to: True a Wheel

9. Bearings and Drive Train

Hubs

Gear Clusters: Freehub vs. Freewheel

How-to: Repack Loose

Ball Bearings

How-to: Adjust the Cones

Headsets and Bottom Brackets

Drive Train

Chain

How-to: Lube Your Chain

How-to: Break Your Chain

Shifters

How-to: Adjust Your Shifters on the Go

How-to: Set Up Your Shifters for the First Time

10. Fixed-Gear Fixation

Building a Fixie: An Overview

The Track Hub

How-to: Convert a Geared Bike to a Fixie

Fixie Dust

Part III: The Community 168

11. Bicycle Education Space

Do-It-Together

How-to: Start a Shop

Finding a Space

Finances

Recruiting, Training, and Keeping Volunteers

Building a Community

How-to: Organize a Group Ride

12. Bike Hack Profiles and Gallery

Scraper Bikes

Glowing Bike

Choppers

Lowriders and Tall Bikes

Bike Hack Profiles

Glossary

Recommended Reading

Index

About the Author and Co-photographer