In the 1980s, I wrote a regular monthly column in Bicycling magazine, on maintenance and repair, particularly focused on the selection and use of tools. While some of this material is rather dated, much of it isn't. Since some of these articles deal with topics that are not covered in such depth elsewhere in this site, I'm putting them online.

I'm starting with just the text for most of these articles, but hope to scan the photos later, from my original 4X5 negatives.

I've done my best to proofread these articles, but they were scanned from old magazines, and there may be some strange results.

In general, I've tried to resist the temptation to tinker with the texts, except that I've tried to undo some of the changes made by my editor (who believes that it's ok to begin a sentence with a conjunction.) As time goes by, I may do major revisions on some of these articles to bring them more up-to-date.

I've also included some even older articles that originally appeared in Bike World magazine in the 1970s.

[I found the temptation to update some of these articles irresistible, and I've added a new article covering newer types of bottom brackets. -- John Allen]