No notes. Just the manual. I almost tossed it, but then thought better of it, sat down with it, and checked out the contents.
Typically, the bicycle owner's manuals I've seen have no real value. They were written as a kind of vague warning which gives lawyers an "out", I am sure, in case the company the manual represents gets in legal trouble with a consumer. There was never any useful knowledge between the covers.
However; this CyclePro manual was different. It was a little instruction booklet. In fact, if one had the correct tools, you could have easily built and adjusted a bike out of the box using those instructions, diagrams, charts, and images found on those pages.
Of course, the technology represented in the manual is so far out of date it is laughable, but in its day, this manual had value. In fact, it still does for teaching about bicycles, and for old-school knowledge which is becoming scarce these days.
There were even diagrams showing how to use some tools. This was a detailed manual, and it displayed a level of care and concern for the consumer which is sorely lacking in many bicycle shop/online transactions these days.
There was a section on sizing a bike to a person. There was another section concerning gear shifting, how and why you'd want to shift. This is stuff you never saw in manuals which came with bicycles when I was working in retail bicycle shops.
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| A gear chart? Would the average consumer even know what to do with this? |
Anyway, I immediately thought about what you get today when you buy a bicycle. The companies selling stuff today are probably not doing manuals like this, and they are likely very similar to what I recall from the early 2020's.
What if there were manuals like this included in bicycles sold today? Certainly the technical nature of the information would be deeper. It would have to be! Look at the hydraulic disc brakes, suspension forks, and electronic shifting. Look at the internal cable housing designs. It is a nightmare for mechanics. I don't suppose the average consumer could even start to want to dive into taking care of their bicycles. Not given how specific the tools have become to work on components and not so much when technical demands are so intense.
Maybe this is a sign we've gone too far......
2 comments:
I cannot recall if it's Breezer or Marin, but recently I saw a manual with a new bicycle that did follow the old ways. The manual was clear about the installation of parts not the maintenance. The thought of why go to the bike shop? The wild bit is how many languages the text was in. It was similar to a quality garment tag in detail and language.
When did the brake leg become the brake arm? Is it the direction of the part that dictates the identification? Is the naming dependant on if you are speaking of cable attaching point versus brake pad?
@teamdarb - I cannot answer your question with any authority, but if I were allowed to speculate, I'd say the difference between "brake leg" and "brake arm" is how the brake is mounted.
"Brake arm" would seem more appropriate for cantilever brakes, which weren't very commonplace until mountain bikes made their debut in the late 70's/early 80's. Before this, a center mount brake caliper was most common and the term"brake leg" makes more sense to me to describe that part of the caliper.
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