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 with
Velo 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.
What’s
What On Your Bicycle
Quick Releases Explained
Removing & Installing Rear Wheels
