Additional Resources Worth Looking Into

The internet is certainly a wonderful place for just about anything you can think of and that certainly applies to bicycles. The key is to look for multiple sources just like you would anything else. It can be very easy to mistake guys talking fondly about their hobby for people that are actual experts. This is not to discount the word of people in and around the bicycle world because they surely have something to say. Even in our digital world, I am very much a fan of print media. Books are more likely to be accurate and factual because they have gone through a vetting process and the author has theoretically done their research before publication. If you have the chance to pick up books about a particular brand or model, do so. They are a treasure trove of esoteric information. Much of this information is not widely circulated on the internet as internet sources for something like bicycles have a tendency to be more speculative than factual. A good book to include in your library is the Park Tool Big Blue Book of Bicycle Repair. There are also some out-of-print manuals that have useful graphics and are also not expensive. One such book is Anybody's Bike Book, which is entirely illustrated, but well diagrammed. This book came out in the 1970s and has a lot of tips and tricks that aren't necessarily still in common use in the industry, but are good to know nonetheless. One example is a technique for removing a hop from a rim. It should almost go without saying that the vast majority of bicycles in the 1970s were still steel rimmed, so a technique to reshape the sidewall wouldn't be as potentially damaging to the integrity of the rim itself. This is a useful trick for old road bikes especially because it might save a rim from scrap and, you some money. If Schwinns are your thing, there are entire volumized encyclopedias that go year-by-year, option-by-option. If you're like me and you don't always trust the digital serial number tools, there are countless pages that break down not only the coding, but paint color offerings, etc. Suffice it to say, if bicycle knowledge is what you crave, check out local book fairs and weird used bookstores. The books might seem expensive now, but they will save you a fortune in the end.