Originally Posted by
brianmcg123
Buy a couple of $50.00 bikes off craigslist. Take them apart. Put them back together, rinse, repeat.
Why pay $100? There are plenty of free bikes on CL, and the less you pay for them, the less worried you will be about ripping them apart!
Lots of good advice above, one recommendation I would add, read through
SB's Glossary. There are lots of great diagrams and cutaways that make pretty plain how all the systems of the bike work together, and perhaps more importantly, if you learn the names of everything, it helps you search for online tutorials. For almost every aspect of bike maintenance, you can find a few YouTube tutorials.