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Renowned cycling how-to author Eugene Sloane passed away this past weekend at the age of 91. Back in 1970 he published “The Complete Book of Bicycling,” a book on the leading edge of the cycling boom that inspired and empowered countless cyclists to take to the roads and service their own machines. Plenty of bike-nerds look back on his words as the ones that solidified their path on two-wheels.
The Urban Velo Store has a few used copies of Sloane’s Handy Pocket Guide and Eugene A Sloane’s Bicycle Repair Manual. While the technology within is long outdated, his wisdom shows through.
That is bad news. I’ve got his 1985 guide to mountain bikes, it was a valuable source of knowledge and inspired me to take the plunge into the fat-tyred world.
Ride on forever, freed of the treacherous husk of flesh our souls briefly inhabit…
Eugene Sloan’s repair guide was the first bike maintenance book I added to my collection — I think it was 1987 or ‘88. Great stuff…I’m sorry to hear of his passing!
As his grand daughter I will miss his smile and silly jokes. I beleive I was his biggest fan as a child knowing my very own grandpa was an author. Especially being that he even put a picture of 7 year old me in one of his books. It fills my heart with joy to read the stories on line of his inspiration to others. Thank you all for sharing.
I still have his Guide to Bicycling from the mid-seventies. Many an hour spent reading it as a youth.
I am reading the book now, fantastic! it is the 1970 version, still very applicable and I definatley got a lot of inspiration from it
When there was no equivalent available you had two choices take your bike to a bike mechanic or purchase the mechanics tome directly from Campagnolo or Shimano for several hundred dollars, then Sloane’s Maintenance Manual came out and finally in superb detail and exacting explanation Sloane described how to do everything and anything in fixing a bike. I still have my copy smeared with grease throughout. He will be missed by amateur bike mechanics everywhere. I just wish he had come out with an updated version after 1980.
This was my first book on cycling as a kid….. and I still refer back to it today. It influenced me enough that I never bought into indexed shifting…. or cassette hubs for that matter. Moderate to big chainrings…. wide freewheels and half-step gears….. that’s what I ride to this day. If it isn’t broke, don’t even go there.
The passing of Eugene…. a time to celebrate his life for sure!
-Cheers to you Eugene!
I still refer to his book from the early seventies. The book is stained, dog eared and marked in; but, I contine to refer to it for information when dealing with my vintage bikes from the early seventies.
I even went out and bought the little gas stove that is shown in one of his camping pictures and continue to use it almost forty years later.
He will certainly be missed!
Really sad news. I hadn’t heard from Gene for quite a while and just by chance decided to Google his name. Gene was quite an influence on my and my involvement in the bike industry. I helped him on a couple of his books providing photos and some editing work on his two mtn bike books and his last “complete book”. I also worked with Gene on several of his Expert Witness for bike accident cases. I feel bad for not having kept up. He will be missed and remain a treasured memory.
I still have his book. The complete book of Bicycling,and I still read it daily since it was published. He will be missed greatly…Allan W. Traphagan
yes, this was a wonderful book,like many others it helped me to start doing my own work. while there was a gear chart in the book eugene sloane did not explain how to design gearing, that had to wait for frank berto. since no one knew anything about gearing back then i worked out many gear charts & stumbled onto half step before frank wrote about it. indeed, i went to a triple crankset in 1970, many people told me my bike was the first 15 speed they saw. i lost the ability to balance on a diamond frame a few years ago so last year i bought a 54 speed greenspeed gto with jacek designed gearing, i bought the custom cluster from harris cyclery & the 67 tooth chainring from highpath engineneering in wales. since john allen did the revision for the second edition of glenns there are several photos of me in the traffic sense segment.