CompleteMartialArts.com - The Essential Guide to Motorcycle Maintenance
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List Price: $29.95
Our Price: $19.77
Your Save: $ 10.18 ( 34% )
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Manufacturer: Whitehorse Press
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 629.28775
EAN: 9781884313417
ISBN: 1884313418
Label: Whitehorse Press
Manufacturer: Whitehorse Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 256
Publication Date: 2003-10
Publisher: Whitehorse Press
Studio: Whitehorse Press
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Editorial Reviews:
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Popular motorcycle journalist and author Mark Zimmerman brings a comfortable, conversational tone to his easy-to-understand explanations of how motorcycles work and how to maintain them and fix them when they don't. This practical tutorial covers all brands and styles of bikes, making it a perfect companion to the owner's service manual whether you need to use the step-by-step instructions for basic maintenance techniques to wrench on your bike yourself or just want to learn enough to become an informed customer at your local motorcycle service department. This book includes more than 500 color photos and a thorough index to make it an especially user-friendly reference for home motorcycle mechanics of all skill levels.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Not just Do-It-Yourself, but Understand-It-Yourself.
Comment: Well-organized, easy on the layperson's eyes but without talking down to us either. "The Essential Guide to Motorcycle Maintenance" is divided up into sections and subsections that make it both an interesting cover-to-cover read but also very easy to use as a fast reference when repairing on the fly, taking the "Teach a man to fish" over the "Give a man a fish" approach. If all you want to know is how to change a spark plug you can probably find a faster how-to online. If you want to know how to change the spark plug AND just what the spark plug is doing, why and how and what happens when it's not doing it right, this is the book you're looking for.
My '03 Kawasaki Vulcan isn't a toy, it's a tool; my only mode of transportation in this poor economy averaging 2,000 miles per month. And if I can't afford a car I certainly can't afford a conventional motorcycle mechanic looking to squeeze my wallet for what isn't there. So when my work-out-of-the-backyard mechanic isn't available or my work takes me away from him for a few months, I want to be able to do a fair amount of maintenance and repairs myself. Or at least know what I'm talking about when I do go to the conventional mechanic. Especially being female, it's still a challenge for some mechanics to see women as anything but walking, gullible, bags of money.
This book has been my first giant leap into that realm. For all the varied motorcycles and configurations out there, Zimmerman gives a solid, most-common overview. More importantly, he does a fantastic job explaining to the layperson just how the various components work. This way, when I have a weird power loss happening under specific weather conditions, I'm not just looking at a laundry list of possible suspects in my owner's manual (or the appendix of this book). I can also go back through paragraphs and sidebars about just what the engine needs, analyzing for myself what the symptom tells me the engine isn't getting, and from there, I'm better equipped to diagnose the likely problem(s) myself than just blindly "Try replacing A, B, or C."
For any biker out there, male or female, looking to be a little less dependent on your local Super Acme Made Of Money MegaMotorsports service shop, for those looking to better maintain your bike (and trust me, the key to hitting 130,000 miles is maintenance, maintenance, maintenance), and for those who want to learn in plain English just what makes your dream machine tick, "The Essential Guide to Motorcycle Maintenance" will be your new best friend!
Customer Rating:
Summary: As Essential as a shop manual
Comment: In addition to Proficient Motorcycling: The Ultimate Guide to Riding Well and a shop manual, I consider this book to be a must buy for any rider. Taken as a supplement to a shop manual, this book's mix of generalized how-to and how-it-works demystify a lot of the "installation is the reverse of these steps" and "Turn this screw for reasons we will never explain" instructions in the shop manual. This manual is really the difference between just following steps and actually understanding why you're doing what you're doing. Zimmerman is a great, engaging writer too which makes the book a real pleasure to read.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Motorcycle Maintenance review
Comment: The book is a detailed overview of motorcycle repairs. Well written and easy enough to go through - a few more diagrams or photos may have helped but then it would be too easy!
Customer Rating:
Summary: By far the best "Do it yourself maintenance" book.
Comment: This book is by far the best I've ever seen and better than I hoped for. It explains with color pictures how things work and why along with tips for getting the job done. Although this book is great for beginners it is also good for intermediately skilled do it your self folks with its in depth explanations.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A remarkably well-balanced book
Comment: Writing a book on a subject like this, with tens of makes and hundreds of models on the market, is a balancing task. Mr. Zimmermann has made it remarkably well.
His examples are very carefully chosen, he always explains the basic principles, and he writes in such a relaxed manner, that you feel "at home" regardless of the make and mode of your own bike.
A very good complement to the service manual of your own bike - this with this book you are not stuck even if the quality of your manual is only tolerable.
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