Okay, I'm a book kinda guy. Whenever I want to know about something I hit the books til I have enough of a foundation of knowledge to start asking not totally stupid questions and building on the knowledge with my own investigations.

So, I begin to get interested in C&V bicycles and I find... nothing. Not unless I want to know about old Schwinns, which seem to have quite a following. Am I missing something? I think we can all agree that sheldonbrown.org is indispensable, it certainly has been for me. What other references are out there? Books, web...whatever.

I think a WikiCycles type site would be great, but I don't know if I'm alone in that thought or not. I want to have a go to reference for the lineage of a particular manufacturer, how to adjust components, methods of rehabbing chrome... all of it.

I'll start. For me I go to:
sheldonbrown.org
bikeforums.net

...to easy I know, but that's what I've got. And lets face it, bikeforums is great, but there is quite a substantial amount of both differences in opinion (there is after all more than one way to skin a cat) and bull-oney which one has to sift through by the ton

The Dancing Chain for data
Park Tools Big Blue Book
Sutherlands
The Bicycle Wheel

That's a few for you.
-Gene-

Those look good. I have the Park tool book, but I often find its a bit too forward in time for my bicycles. That said it does have quite a bit of good stuff, and I did get a mountain bike with disc brakes not too long ago that are a bit mysterious to me, and the park tool book will guide me.

I looked up the Dancing Chain on Amazon and that looks very interesting.

What about roadsters? Is there a rod brake roadster tribute book? That would be really great.

You're already there

velobase.com
disraeligears.com
classicfuji.com
miyatacatalogs.com
vintagetrek.com
classicrendevous.com
velospace.com
https://www.jaysmarine.com/TH_ourcollection.html
https://oldtenspeedgallery.com/
https://www.mytenspeeds.com/My_TenSpeeds_1/

Almost all of them can be found here:

https://www.vintagebicyclepress.com/bookstore.html

And a very interesting book:

https://www.velo-orange.com/databook.html

I have a copy of that one. It's interesting to see home many supposedly "modern" designs have been used in the past.

There's a book from the 80's I have.
"All New" Complete Book Of Bicycling by Eugene A. Sloane.
I picked mine up for free minus the outer paper cover.
Here's one on eBay for like $13. It covers a lot of things, and considering its print date was 1980 it's old stuff
https://cgi.ebay.com/EUGENE-SLOANE-bo...-/380247116614
-Gene-

My favorite book for 1980s bikes is the Frank Berto: "Complete Guide to Upgrading your Bike." You can find the book used cheap on Amazon (21 cents plus shipping). I bought mine at a library book sale. Written in 1988, so it was a contemporary how to guide book that covers many of the bikes I like, and the state of the components at that time.

I have a library copy of this on loan right now. Great wheel lacing tutorial.

Also a 'book guy,' I have learned a lot from:

Frank Berto's 'Complete Guide to Upgrading...'

Eugene Sloane's 'New Bicycle Maintenance Manual', c 1985 edition

and 'Bicycling Magazine's Complete Guide to Bike Maintenance' (or words to that effect) also from the 80s.

Through Amazon I bought each of the above for something like $3-5 shipped. The two maintenance books are much more useful and relevant to C&V (and smaller and cheaper) than the gigantic Lennard Zinn opus I unfortunately bought first.

Those are for equipment. For inspiration and context on bike riding and racing in particular (which I knew *nothing* about) I have enjoyed Tim Krabbe's 'The Rider,' Tim Moore's 'French Revolutions,' and Martin Dugard's 'Chasing Lance.' Now I have at least a little clue about what I am watching during the TdF.

Thanks all, this is great. I don't know why I didn't think of looking for "New" guides to bicycles, circa 1980s. Of course the cutting edge of the time is going to have what I need.

Still waiting for the Roadster omnibus though...

I "borrowed" this from my dad and use it almost weekly - great book especially for the vintage stuff.

Depending on how you ride, I like lovelybike.blogspot.com and www.rivbike.com for non-technical stuff. Besides, sometimes they're just darn fun reads.

"Glenn's Encyclopedia of Bicycle Repair" for vintage stuff-n took the mystery out of Sturmey Archer hubs.... I also like https://bicycletutor.com/ for the excellent videos (with a Canadian accent) on most things modern. The videos are also accompanied with text and photos to reinforce the lesson. I have to hardily second sheldonbrown.com and Park's "how-to" site; https://www.parktool.com/. Just go to the "repair Help" section. they also have fairly complete torque setting info, as well.

+1

Great book; worth getting just to read.

+1 to Berto's "Upgrading Your Bike". Some nights i'll announce to my family "I'll be in the sunroom reading Upgrading Your Bike". My daughter rolls her eyes in embarassment for my geekiness.

Right now I've got "Glenn's New Complete Bicycle Manual " on loan from the library. It is a vintage bike repair bonanza--ie,separate sections on how to overhaul Suntour, Huret, Shimano, and Campy rd's. I'll definitely be trying to buy this one off ABE Books.

I also like one of the most primitive books in this genre---Everybody's Bike Book, originally aimed at mechanically clueless bike owners during the 70's bike boom.