The Urban Biking Handbook

Book excerpt: Cyclists are everywhere, the cautionary bumper stickers tell you. More than ever before, bicycle culture is everywhere, too: from Portland, Oregon, to Portland, Maine, city planners are making big changes to city infrastructure for the increasing numbers of people who are leaving their cars at home (or deep-sixing them altogether) and upgrading to two wheels. Biking in the city is no longer just for bike messengers with a death wish. Biking's benefits are myriad: better fitness, smaller environmental footprint, quiet and low profile, cheaper, greater accessibility. For each new, non-competitive cyclist in the consumer marketplace, there is at least one bicycle that needs to be fixed, maintained, and customized. Cyclists are looking for communities of like-minded people to learn the basics of repair and maintenance, the tricks of the trade, and get some super inspiring ideas for making their bike reflect their lifestyle choices. Quarry's The Urban Biking Handbook: The DIY Guide to Building, Rebuilding, Tinkering with, and Repairing Your Bicycle for City Living is a hardworking, illustrated guide to the cycling lifestyle. Not only does it teach tons of repair and maintenance techniques, it shows such popular skills as converting a multiple-gear bike into a fixed-gear bike (or fixie), building your own wheels, and how to build a Frankenbike from parts scavenged from several bikes. All the techniques and projects are framed by spotlights on urban bike culture worldwide: profiles of bike mechanics, bike builders, bike artists, and more.