A chap at work has got into road cycling in the last couple of years. He is doing lots of miles and his aim is to do audaxes. The thing is he has no idea about maintenance at all so I was going to get him some guides. Now back in the day "Richards bicycle book" was the go to book for maintenance. Is it still around? Is there something better? He rides a modern road bike and can't even change brake pads!
Also he has had two fairly nasty crashes both while he was legally in the right but both could probably have been avoided by better road positioning. Is there an easy source of advice on road positioning / defensive riding etc? The crashes have left him quite shaken and lacking confidence which tends to make him gutter hug more.
I am trying to get him to go mtbing but with little success so far and have chatted with him after the crashes about sight lines and "owning" the road / defensive riding etc
So advice? should I suggest bikeability training? I have heard bad stories about the quality of some of it or what else would you suggest?
Re. maintenance, the Park Tools Big Blue Book of Bicycle repair is as good as anything. Though their website is even better as you can see what is going on.
Re. positioning and riding, personal experience is the best way to learn is just ride with more experienced riders. Doesn't need to be a club run or anything like that, just getting out with a few people who can talk to him about the hazards and where to put yourself. If not, YouTube would be my thoughts, there must be a GCN vid or 2 on that subject.
Ta
I am going for a spin with him today. Trouble is I know my "style" scares folk when riding in town. I shall try to temper it a bit and to explain why I am doing stuff but he is more aspie than me so communication can be a bit tricky! 😉 Dunno where we are going to end up riding.
+1 for park tools big blue book of bike repairs, the same information is on their website.
Cyclecraft by Franklin would be good to let him learn the reasons behind road position.
Take him to quiet traffic free roads first so he can practice Control, Observation, Position, Signal. Use COPS to give feedback, give a positive then one thing to change, use the hierarchy of COPS to give the feedback. Only when he is comfortable with the new style of riding take him into slightly heavier traffic.
Ta
Regarding maintenance, I have the Zinn book but to be honest the videos on YouTube (GCN or similar) are much better. Far easier to actually see someone doing the job in question and talking you through it.
Trouble is I know my “style” scares folk when riding in town.
I get that, when my wife started riding on the road she was scared too. What helped was doing it on a quiet road and explaining the reasoning, "I'm moving out here as ...", "I'm filtering in the middle and not the left because ..." and occasionally you look like a right pro when you can say "see that car, they're about to do ... so we're moving here to deal with it".
I talked about it in a positive light, basically saying we're doing this to make the ride more fun and less stressful rather than saying we're doing ii so a moron doesn't hit us. Basically trying to be a bit zen almost. This worked well until someone close passed me and I chased them down the road giving them a mouthful of abuse when I caught them at the junction, the air of serenity was quickly shattered...
Now back in the day “Richards bicycle book” was the go to book for maintenance. Is it still around?
After a thread on here recently I just had to go and hunt down a copy having lent mine to to someone over 20 years ago and forgetting who. A book that really did change my life.
As for the maintenance side of things I'd have to say I think good videos are better generally than books in a world with constantly changing standards. Books and tools seem to become redundant at quite a rate.