hi, acn any one recomend a good repair guide. I would like to actualy find out how everything works, to be able to take stuff apart and put it back together.

cheers

Bicycling magazine publishes a pretty good guide to bicycle maintenance. The edition I have is kind of old, and doesn't have much information on suspension or disc brakes, but I suspect that newer editions have improved on that.

Books: Zinn and the Art of Road Bike Maintenance and The Bicycling Guide to Complete Bicycle Maintenance and Repair

Free resources: Park Tool, Bicycle Tutor, and of course Bicycle Mechanics at bikeforums.net

All the stuff mentioned so far is spot on. The one thing I would suggest is to practice while at home and not on tour. At least this way if you mess it all up the bike shop can get you back on track. It's really pretty rewarding to maintain your own bike. Knowing how everything works really does have a pretty high level of satisfaction.

Buy a decent tool kit if you don't have one.

Those look great, but both cost tons here in the UK. $31 from amazon in the US, means £38 in the UK

You can get most of what you need to know from on-line sites.

One of the best is Sheldon Brown's: www.sheldonbrown.com

This page has 9 links to information about bike maintenance and repair.

Ray

+1 on https://www.sheldonbrown.com
and also try https://www.parktool.com

Visit your local library. You can probably borrow those books for free. I personally use the internet more frequently than the repair book I own, but I also checked out some library books when I was first trying to teach myself to repair my bike.

If you do torrents, do a search for "three bicycle mechanic books".

The torrent has:

Barnett's Analysis and Procedures for Bicycle Mechanics
Barnett's Bicycle Repair Manual 2003
Handbook for Bicycle Mechanics by Howard Sutherland

All three are in PDF. The nice part is if you tour with a laptop, you can have them right with you.

Try this:
https://www.parktool.com/repair/index.asp

Try used book shops, I got some decent deals on Zen&, bicyclings repair book, and my personal classic and vintage bible, Glens bicycle repair.

Otherwise, the library is your friend. just don't get the books to greasy Librarians hate that, I know

Zinn's book is very nice, although the online resources circulating these days are more than ample.

Agree with the above.
The Zinn and art of bike maintenance book you can get for £10 used through Amazon in the UK.
Having looked at resources recently though, I'd be inclined to use what's on the web - park tools and sheldon brown sites are both very good.