My bicycle mechanic background is extremely limited. I've never worked on anything like a bicycle with proficiency, everything seems... delicate. Coming from a background of electrical repair and maintenance, hot rodding, diesel truck repair, and welding you'd think I'd be able to work on a bicycle. Nope, to my LBS it goes. When I was a kid I had a bunch of junk bikes and I was often frustrated by attempting to keep them ride able. When I became an adult I swore I'd never work on a bike again because of my years of frustration. Now that it's been almost 15 years since I had crappy yard sale bikes I'm kind of coming around to the idea of working on them again. This time though I want some proper training. I recently bought "One Gear" which is a very nice book on bike repair. I like how in the beginning they take a bike completely apart and you can see in the photos what it's like to take it down to a bare frame.

As of now I'd be willing to build a 460 V-8 for a mudder but I wouldn't want to adjust the shifting gear on my Giant.