Driving me crazy...what was name of classic 70's Bike repair book?
 

I am not that old.....but the memory is going :D

What was the title of the funky bike info/repair book from the early 70's

I had weird cartoons (like one of person with a big bottom when talking about ashtabula cranks)

It was a basic book at the time of the bike boom and 10 speeds were new and unusual.

The book loved suntour and thought huret plastic deraillers were junk as I recall.

huret didn't make those, that was Simplex Prestige...are you thinking of Eugene Sloan's Complete Book of Bicycling?
or was it Lennerd Zinn?
http://www.amazon.com/Zinns-Cycling-.../dp/1931382433

... or Sutherland's, perhaps?

Got it....don't know why the Zinn reference made me think of 10 speed press

it is


Anybody's bike book, Tom Cuthbertson, Ten Speed Press 1971.

Anybody's Bike Book by Tom Cuthbertson, illustrations by Rick Morall, I think. Just got an updated copy for my daughter. Great book: a lot like the Volkswagen idiot book by John Muir.

+1 on Anybody's Bike Book. I'm looking at my copy right now (actually, my wife's copy, which was given to her in 1980).

Neal

Yep, still on my bookshelf. Got me started wrenching. Discussed the dreaded condition called "frozen nipples" and the happier "permissive student nipples." I bet Cuthbertson spent a lot of time at Dr. Hook concerts.

There was a sequel, Anybody's Bike Tripping, which had more of those big-bottomed people riding fat-tire cruiser bikes alongside big-thighed racer types riding skinny tires. Less Cheez and more Whiz in it but it did have instructions on how to ride a high-wheeler "Ordinary" and a great custom frame section written by Al Eisentraut. It also decried the fetish for trying to get the longest possible life out of equipment, advising when encountering a gravel road to "go like Hell like you always do."

Ten Speed Press was and is a great outfit :) - I'm on my second copy of The Moosewood Cookbook.

I MUST find that "Volkswagen idiot book" mentioned above. My sister and her husband have a 1970s Westfalia camper van (bright orange "bus" with the canvas pop top, named George) which gets a lot of tinkering and TLC. They understand my bike obsession, without actually sharing it :)

My how the times have changed. I recall the cartoon of a person on a bike with a cop. There was a bulge in one of the handlebars. Said the person: "Yes sir, officer. It's the latest thing! Tuck and Roll handlebars!"

Today this would get your book burned and a SWAT-Team flying through your windows. Many places at least.

That was my favorite book for many years. I didn't learn a lot from it - but I loved his writing style.

Ah yes, How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive 19 Ed: A Manual of Step-by-Step Procedures for the Compleat Idiot by John Muir. Just search on Amazon for "Volkwagen Compleat Idiot" adn you'll find a number of different editions.

I bought along with a Beetle in 1970, and while the humor is droll and outrageous (as an effective alternative to expensive 5-mph bumpers, he advocated strapping the drivers to the front of their vehicles), the content was excellent and well organized. I learned enough that I was able to get a job as a VW mechanic for several years. Try to get an edition that was clearly typed with a typewriter, rather than the more sanitary typeset ones that came later. He is inordinately fond of the microbus (Typ 2).

You dissin' my ride?
 

"He is inordinately fond of the microbus (Typ 2)" There is no such thing as this! As some of you are no doubt aware, the lucky owner/caretaker/curator of a VW Type 2 (AKA Bus, Transporter, My One True Home, etc.) knows there is nothing inordinate about the profound love this vehicle inspires! It is one of the few cars which justly deserves the kind of affection we feel for our most prized bicycles. The campers in particular are beloved for their dual roles as home and escape module. Driving mine, I feel like a snail: making my way slowly, with my home at my back. (No slime, though.) This is pretty much how I felt when I went bike touring in my teens and twenties. You can also get quite a few bicycles inside, as I first learned on the Trans-Canada Highway in 1979. My wife, brother-in-law and I were bike tripping across the continent and ran out of inspiration outside of Ottawa, contemplating way too many miles on the only through road there was. We hitched a ride in a totally packed VW bus driven by two crazy German guys, who let us off in Sault Ste Marie many cramped hours later. But everything fit inside!

The VW book is an old friend from my youth.
What about 'Richard's Bicycle Book', or something like that by Richard Ballentine (sic)?
Top

I had the Richard's Bicycle Book, too. Richard Ballantine - I think...shakes head <rattle> <rattle>...It was more nuts & bolts than Cuthbertson's tome. But pretty good.

I swear by the Glenns book although a little long because it repeats a great many paragraphs, it is very thorough and loaded with pictures. It's the best for C+V before 1980.

I had the VW book in the mid 70's for my 68 VW. I didn't have the car a terribly long time, I got a bit concerned about all the hideous things that can happen to you if the thing was hit, so I "flipped" it for a $400 profit and gave the VW book to a friend.

Really entertaining book, though.

!
 

I disagree! He is appropriately fond of the Type 2!

I loved his anger, seething there beneath the surface, barely controlled.

I loved that book! Unfortunately, I donated my paperback copy to our church's rummage sale about 10-years-ago :bang:

OK, you guys, I meant inordinate in the sense of extreme, not "wrong." I must have been thinking of J.S. Haldane's supposed quip about God's having "an inordinate fondness for beetles."

Excellent! Now I know what to get them for their anniversary :)

No no, you still don't get it. All fondness, the greatest amount or intensity is wholly in order when the VW Bus (sigh!) is the object! Extreme, you say? Then you, my friend, have not had a bus in your life. It is the Mother Ship of the twentieth century, able to take you anywhere and, by offering a warm, dry, cozy space in which to eat and sleep, make wherever you are your home. It is the backpack that bears you; the comfort of defined, protected space in strange environments. And if the bloody engine breaks at 3:00AM, you can coast to the shoulder and sleep tight until morning.
I love my bus, don't you know.

Where else but C&V can one be launched into a warm fuzzy nostalgia concerning long-gone microbuses? Mmmm... burning that #3 valve over the Continental Divide, finding that giant steam locomotive in a park in Cheyenne while pondering how to handle this... and miraculously finding a guy with a serious VW hobby and fully equipped garage where I was allowed to tear it down and do the valve job for just the cost of the machine shop work...aaaaahhhhh! :) Thanks!!!