book: The Essential Guide to Motorcycle Maintenance

[lsrxc]

This book, authored by Mark Zimmerman, is an excellent resource for any Motorcycle related issues and questions. Lots of color pictures and illustration details. Instructions on common maintenance steps are written in layman's terms. What I found the most helpful were the explanations of the innerworkings of standard motorcycle components.

I'm definitely not mechanically inclined, but going over this book many times, as well as tackling the repair manuals, will arm you with enough knowledge to make maintaining your bike less intimidating. Highly recommended.

[MWValley]

Wow!

Thanks for saying such nice things about this book. My employer, Whitehorse Press publishes this book. We are very proud of the Essential Guide to Motorcycle Maintenance. The author is a real character and he's very skilled at getting the "how to do it" message across in a funny, practical manner.

You might also enjoy How to Set Up Your Motorcycle Workshop by Charlie Masi. He's a fun writer also.

Thanks again for the kind words. We put a lot of hard work into our books so we are pleased you liked it.

Jeff

[scooterjock]

Thank-you...Its a very good book for new and nearly new riders...or experienced riders sick of being ripped off. It has great pics and will work well with any service manual. Just knowing how to spot problems just beginning is wonderful.
Is there a book for scooters in the works by Mr. Zimmerman?
Look forward to reading the book and using it as a guide.

Scooterjockey/don(owner of new, red dl650 and burg400)

Scooterjack,

Thanks for your kind words about this book. It's a fair amount of work to do such a project but we are pleased with the way it turned out.

I don't believe the author is working on a scooter maintenance book, but much of the same information will apply. I know from my own wrenching and riding on both scooters and conventional motorbikes there ARE some differences. Most obvious I suppose would be the variable ratio belt drive.
Perhaps after spending more time with the book and getting some info from your dealer or other scooter maintainers, you'd have all that down too.

We will be publishing a book tentatively called the Scooter Bible sometime this Fall. Written by long-time scooter experts/historians the Dregni Bros., this well-illustrated "coffee table" sort of book should be of interest to all scooterists. From the earliest Vespa to the latest, tire-shredding Burgman this book will cover it all.

Ride well!

Jeff

Scooters were around before motorcycles as motors were attached to womens bicycles(step through design is still there today). Even Suzuki got his start by going out of the silk market to adding motors to bicycles. Many companies made straight scooters including cushman which were dropped with paratroopers during WWII. Some of these made it to Italy where Vespa(which means wasp...that is how it sounds as it goes down the road) used U.S. aircraft starter motors as the engines. U.S. steel made up the rest of the scoot as the leaving troops got rid of everything. Gas, liquor, cigarettes and nylons were the most expensive commodities...cars were unthinkable. The scooter was the key to get the economy jumpstarted. Do a google under scooter history for more info.
CVT and SECVT are not easy to understand but they were invented in the U.S. also...but was perfected elswhere and was even used in a car in the 50s and is even used in the smart car today.
Fuel cells today are being hooked up to scoots...because the scoot market is 10x greater around the world than motorcycle sales.
Drawbacks are all the plastic that makes working on your own scoot a pain...there is even a new scoot in east aisa called the Aptiva where the whole back end comes up to reveal the engine without anything in the way.
Scooters are the fastest growing segment of the powered two wheel market...and will take over the m/c market if they ever lift the trade restriction of only 2,500 units per model for the whole U.S. This restriction alone keeps the prices higher than m/c with the same cc's
don ...off my soapbox...