Jim Langley - Website and Blog
One of the coolest things about bicycles is that they’re darn easy to fix; fun to fix, too. Everything’s right there, easy to see and figure out. With basic hand tools you might already have around the house, you can make many common repairs. Just by riding the bike, you can usually diagnose problems. And, with a little practice, even advanced bicycle repair such as wheelbuilding is well within your reach... In fact, it was the friendliness of bikes that got me into bicycle mechanics in 1972. At my first job, I was so taken with wrenching that I dreamt of bike tools at night, and got to work in the morning an hour early, eager to get back behind that repair stand and start assembling and tuning two-wheelers. I stuck with it for seventeen years and worked in six shops, from New Hampshire to California.
Then, one day, while working at the Bicycle Center in Santa Cruz, California, I got an offer to write for a new magazine out of San Francisco, called California Bicyclist, and I began writing a monthly column called “Technicalities.” This led to freelance work withVelo News and Bicycling Magazine. And in 1989, when Bicycling decided to open the company’s first satellite office, they asked me to manage it. That’s when I stopped wrenching full time and began writing.
I was Bicycling’s Technical Editor for ten years, during which time I wrote about all of cycling. Perhaps most useful and popular was my how-to series called “Repair Stand,” in which I explained mechanical procedures step-by-step. These proved popular enough that there were reports of people cutting them out of library copies of the magazine. And, much of the information, along with the photo-and-caption format was used in creating the best-seller Bicycling Magazine’s Complete Guide to Bicycle Maintenance and Repair, which I co-authored. My new book is Your Home Bicycle Workshop, which isavailable here.
This section of my site contains my how-to articles in hopes that it’ll help you achieve all your wrenching needs and goals. Heck, maybe you’ll even go nuts with it and become a pro mechanic (a great occupation, by the way, because you can get a job anywhere and every bike repair is different; be sure to read my story about wrenching at the world championships)! Plus, who knows, you too might land a gig as an editor?!Then, one day, while working at the Bicycle Center in Santa Cruz, California, I got an offer to write for a new magazine out of San Francisco, called California Bicyclist, and I began writing a monthly column called “Technicalities.” This led to freelance work withVelo News and Bicycling Magazine. And in 1989, when Bicycling decided to open the company’s first satellite office, they asked me to manage it. That’s when I stopped wrenching full time and began writing.
I was Bicycling’s Technical Editor for ten years, during which time I wrote about all of cycling. Perhaps most useful and popular was my how-to series called “Repair Stand,” in which I explained mechanical procedures step-by-step. These proved popular enough that there were reports of people cutting them out of library copies of the magazine. And, much of the information, along with the photo-and-caption format was used in creating the best-seller Bicycling Magazine’s Complete Guide to Bicycle Maintenance and Repair, which I co-authored. My new book is Your Home Bicycle Workshop, which isavailable here.
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