How Complete Is the Complete Bike Book

By Chris Dannen

WHAT: Complete Bike Book WHERE: Your Local Book Store HOW MUCH: $17.95

With a name like Complete Bike Book, you’d expect to find a veritable encyclopedia of cycling techniques, disciplines and equipment between the covers. Indeed, that’s pretty much what you get with journalist Chris Sidwells’ new book, whose subtitle bills it as a guide to “Choosing, riding and maintaining your bike.”

Sidwells, who is a veteran racer, shop owner and cycling columnist, has divided his book into six logical sections: Getting Started, Bike Gallery, Better Cycling, Health and Fitness, Competitive Cycling and Maintaining Your Bike. Each section devotes equal space to both mountain and road cycling, and in some cases even branches out to discuss niches like Trials riding and Track cycling.

The book’s abundant color photography gives it a visual-dictionary feel in sections like the Bike Gallery, and reads like a well-illustrated tutorial in the maintenance and health sections. In both instances, the visuals and the text are cohesive, clear and ample.

That being said, veteran cyclists will not find a plethora of new information in Sidwell’s book, but instead might use it to pick up a few new wrenching tricks, or educate themselves about other disciplines of cycling. This kind of use speaks to the book’s instructive tone and its wealth of basic information – but also to its simplistic coverage of more complex areas like bike repair. Its somewhat elementary focus notwithstanding, the Complete Bike Book is worth a read, as its dearth of knowledge is refreshingly concise and remarkably broad.

Just a sample of the fine photography that fills Sidwell's book.

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