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, 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.
 

Interest in bicycling is growing rapidly, with worldwide industry sales up 10 to 25% per year over the past decade. There are currently 450 million bicycles owned in the US, with over 60 million adult riders. Interest in commuting (gas prices), health and fitness (boomers retiring), and environmental concerns (zero emissions) are converging to make bicycling a subject area of continued high growth. This book is designed as an introduction to bicycling, and features current information along with professional quality step-by-step and identification photos.
 

Graham Watson’s Tour de France Travel Guide lets cycling fans experience all the excitement of the Tour while negotiating its many daily obstacles with the confidence of a local. As cycling’s leading photographer, Graham Watson has been in the right place at the right time during every stage of every Tour de France since 1977. No one knows how to get around the Tour like Graham. Graham shares his 31 years of Tour de France experience in this beautifully illustrated guidebook. Featuring over 200 of his award-winning photographs along with full-color maps, travel tips, checklists, and travel resources, this book presents a fresh and unique strategy for getting around the Tour’s many opportunities for frustration to find a front-row seat for all the action. Learn where to eat, where to sleep, how to get around, how to see and photograph the race, and how to enjoy the greatest show on two wheels.