Here is a link to the major topics at Sheldon Brown's site. these are just the highlights, you should just mark his home page and have all of his wisdom available to you.
http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread....com-shortcuts

http://sheldonbrown.com/home.html

Hope these links helps some, I depend on them and my Lennard Zinn's Zinn and theAart of Road Bike Maintenance and his Zinn' s Bicycling Primer, for information on bicycles. Also get a Park's Big Blue Book


Bill