Urban Velo
April 10th, 2013
Bicycle mechanic Sam Tracy is no stranger to the urban cycling realm, he’s been at it as a ‘zine publisher since the early 1990s and wrote an early no-nonsense repair guide, the pictured out of print How to Rock and Roll – A City Riders Reapir Manual. Now he is back with the second edition of Bicycle! A Repair and Maintenance Manifesto, with the same mix of digestable DIY tech advice and humor. Sam isn’t scared to tell you to use a hammer and duct tape when called for — this isn’t the manual for those with plastic bikes and torque wrenches, this is more geared towards keeping your bike working in the real world, sometimes with scavenged parts, sometimes by forcing the issue to keep the wheels rolling. This book is more about low-cost and no-cost repairs than upgrades and weighing your bike. Make no mistake, Sam is an accomplished mechanic and his tech advice is spot on. An ideal book for novice mechanics put off by the tech jargon of other tech manuals, experienced wrenches will also find solid advice from his experience working in bicycle co-ops and in the less than ideal conditions of Mauritania.
Sam Tracy wrote about his time in Mauritania in Urban Velo #15, On The Road To Azougui.
