ParkTool BigBlueBook... quick comment/question
10-30-09 | 07:36 PM
#1
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ParkTool BigBlueBook... quick comment/question
Hi All,
I'm gathering books and info for our app. I have the J. Barnette 4 volume set (from library), today my 2nd ed (paperback) edition of the famed BigBlueBook (BB2/BBB)came in. I'm impressed! It is blue, but its really not all that big in the paperback edition. I like the layout and the many color, well composed, and carefully considered pictures. You'd have to chop up a couple of bikes to see what these thoughtfully posed pictures show. (Calvin must have been up nights with a band-saw for a couple of weeks anyway
not to mention files & steel brush ? Beautiful work imho!
Anyway, I thought was interesting that I found this book for about $16 from Amazon Market Place / The Bike Store (CA). It arrived in like 2 days to Wisconsin (!) for something another $6. I'm cheap but anything below the $25 that helps things seems like a pretty good deal to me. Sure wish component manufacturers and Bike assemblers had manuals anything like this for their products!
So here's my question:
Michael
I'm gathering books and info for our app. I have the J. Barnette 4 volume set (from library), today my 2nd ed (paperback) edition of the famed BigBlueBook (BB2/BBB)came in. I'm impressed! It is blue, but its really not all that big in the paperback edition. I like the layout and the many color, well composed, and carefully considered pictures. You'd have to chop up a couple of bikes to see what these thoughtfully posed pictures show. (Calvin must have been up nights with a band-saw for a couple of weeks anyway
not to mention files & steel brush ? Beautiful work imho! Anyway, I thought was interesting that I found this book for about $16 from Amazon Market Place / The Bike Store (CA). It arrived in like 2 days to Wisconsin (!) for something another $6. I'm cheap but anything below the $25 that helps things seems like a pretty good deal to me. Sure wish component manufacturers and Bike assemblers had manuals anything like this for their products!
So here's my question:
- When I bought this I was seeing USED BB3 books for $70 and some plus kind of prices (and NOTHING less).
- What's going on here?
- Are the old hardbacks (I assume) that have some collector value / or are they better somehow.
- At the same time I vaguely remember reading that 2nd edition has some new sections/somethings reorganized - so what is going on here?
10-30-09 | 08:43 PM
#3
Thrifty Bill
Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 23,645
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From: Mans of NC & SW UT Desert
Bikes: 86 Katakura Silk, 87 Prologue X2, 88 Cimarron LE, 1975 Sekai 4000 Professional, 73 Paramount, plus more
+ 1 Anymore, the web is really got it all.
I do like bicycle books, and my favorite is the 1988 vintage Frank Berto "Guide to Upgrading Your Bike". Pretty much everything I have is vintage, and this book is a great guide to upgrades from that era. You can find used copies on Amazon for as little as 41 cents! (plus shipping)
I do like bicycle books, and my favorite is the 1988 vintage Frank Berto "Guide to Upgrading Your Bike". Pretty much everything I have is vintage, and this book is a great guide to upgrades from that era. You can find used copies on Amazon for as little as 41 cents! (plus shipping)
10-30-09 | 09:35 PM
#4
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I could be (easily) missing some of the things at the website but I've poked around there and most of it seems clearly
geared to showing tools and services - the book has MUCH more.
Let me list some:
1. There's a nice 6-7 page glossary (end of book)
2. There's several pages and a table dedicated to scheduled maintenance early on
3. There are about 4 nice photos per page / some 200 pages dedicated to chapters on the "usual bike suspects"
4. There are a number of "trouble shooting" tables - and the one on dérailleurs (chapt 9) would have been what I
needed last week (bent hanger)
5. Wheel truing seems to be covered in good detail (NO expert!) - about 10 pages dedicated to this.
6. Material / pictures on a whole chapter (almost 20 pages) dedicated to tires and tubes. Lots of pictures of tire
faults.
......................
......................
and oh ya, rather discretely tucked into the back are some nice table of a certain tool manufacturers product numbers for different tasks BUT REALLY - there's a lot of stuff I have never seen before anywhere like how to wash up your bike after an event without doing getting counter productive. Stuff like this....
It's clear it can be as comprehensive as the Barnett manuals - but the photos seem to take me right to where I can see the "topic" then I can read if I am interested. I like that for "learning by skimming" - rather than a lot of drawn out procedures with gobs of do this then do that if..... that's not readable BUT obviously needed if you are a mechanic and have a patient in ER with a particular complex problem. To repeat myself - I am just finding this manual surprisingly "readable" - but then I've been working on this project 6 months and everytime I get something in I have more of a basis to go on.
I don't see this stuff at the site - sure the tool tables & the "bicycle map" bitmap / layers component image is in both.
============================
Oh and speaking of BOOKS - "NO HANDS" came in today also and I'm just loving this read. Better and more interesting than I ever imagined - so thanks to somebody here for mentioning that.... and I've noted the book above in this thread - can't beat that kind of price.
Clearly a "coffee table" book on bikes - but well worth the $3 or so I paid (!!) via amazon again - is the "The Bicycle" book by Gilbert King. Many many great pictures of old BoneShakers / wooden framed bikes / and assorted "odd duck" machines like the Alenax Mountain Bike early 90's - and some good printed stuff between the pictures too
Every book has something unique - have gathered some 20 already - If I decided to buy Park Tools - then buying this book as a helper if I had a late model standard type bike - would be, a "no brainer" for me. This manual is not a historical reference, is not strongly procedural but packs a lot of great info in its 245 pages.
.... I'll give it 10 thumbs up (because that is the kind of mechanic I would be... )
Michael
geared to showing tools and services - the book has MUCH more.
Let me list some:
1. There's a nice 6-7 page glossary (end of book)
2. There's several pages and a table dedicated to scheduled maintenance early on
3. There are about 4 nice photos per page / some 200 pages dedicated to chapters on the "usual bike suspects"
4. There are a number of "trouble shooting" tables - and the one on dérailleurs (chapt 9) would have been what I
needed last week
(bent hanger)5. Wheel truing seems to be covered in good detail (NO expert!) - about 10 pages dedicated to this.
6. Material / pictures on a whole chapter (almost 20 pages) dedicated to tires and tubes. Lots of pictures of tire
faults.
......................
......................
and oh ya, rather discretely tucked into the back are some nice table of a certain tool manufacturers
product numbers for different tasks BUT REALLY - there's a lot of stuff I have never seen before anywhere like how to wash up your bike after an event without doing getting counter productive. Stuff like this....It's clear it can be as comprehensive as the Barnett manuals - but the photos seem to take me right to where I can see the "topic" then I can read if I am interested. I like that for "learning by skimming" - rather than a lot of drawn out procedures with gobs of do this then do that if..... that's not readable BUT obviously needed if you are a mechanic and have a patient in ER with a particular complex problem. To repeat myself - I am just finding this manual surprisingly "readable" - but then I've been working on this project 6 months and everytime I get something in I have more of a basis to go on.
I don't see this stuff at the site - sure the tool tables & the "bicycle map" bitmap / layers component image is in both.
============================
Oh and speaking of BOOKS - "NO HANDS" came in today also and I'm just loving this read. Better and more interesting than I ever imagined - so thanks to somebody here for mentioning that.... and I've noted the book above in this thread - can't beat that kind of price.
Clearly a "coffee table" book on bikes - but well worth the $3 or so I paid (!!) via amazon again - is the "The Bicycle" book by Gilbert King. Many many great pictures of old BoneShakers / wooden framed bikes / and assorted "odd duck" machines like the Alenax Mountain Bike early 90's - and some good printed stuff between the pictures too
Every book has something unique - have gathered some 20 already - If I decided to buy Park Tools - then buying this book as a helper if I had a late model standard type bike - would be, a "no brainer" for me. This manual is not a historical reference, is not strongly procedural but packs a lot of great info in its 245 pages.
.... I'll give it 10 thumbs up (because that is the kind of mechanic I would be...
)Michael
10-30-09 | 10:44 PM
#5
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Whoops - Site does overlap
BY REGION - FRAME & FORK TOOLS
gets you there at the site... there is at least some overlap on the component reference materials...
sorry for bad info - I was thrown off, I suspect, by the word "Region" which I took to mean "part of the country"... no clue how much overlap there is - and I don't really care - I like having a manual anyway when it is reasonably priced.
Their "Map" however is a beautiful thing - I could see this on a touch screen. They are on to something really nice..... its the best gizmo I've seen yet for switching between components quickly / intuitively and I do this stuff for my living.
Cheers!
Michael
gets you there at the site... there is at least some overlap on the component reference materials...
sorry for bad info - I was thrown off, I suspect, by the word "Region" which I took to mean "part of the country"... no clue how much overlap there is - and I don't really care - I like having a manual anyway when it is reasonably priced.
Their "Map" however is a beautiful thing - I could see this on a touch screen. They are on to something really nice..... its the best gizmo I've seen yet for switching between components quickly / intuitively and I do this stuff for my living.
Cheers!
Michael
