Offroad Vehicles Books

If you like to travel the back roads this is the book for you. It has excellent information, along with maps, GPS and history. Well worth the money.

I've got a lot of Utah guides but this one is the best by far. Very good maps at different scales. Trail diagrams with loads of point of interest. Detailed trail logs with turn by turn directions, scenic ratings, difficulty ratings. A great historical section about the people and places of Utah. This one has it all. We leave in one week!!

Backcountry Adventures are the best guides of their kind out there. Odometer references, descriptive text, and (especially) GPS coordinates make these easy and foolproof to use. The map and index for the respective areas, Southeast, Central, etc., make planning your route easy as the different routes are color coded with their page numbers referenced. Good sampling of human interest content also, giving some history, flora and fauna, and geology information.

My only criticism is that these guides should be spiral bound, and pages removable. This would allow the book to lie flat and pages and/or sections could be removed to make it more concise for use on a motorcycle or bicycle. These guides are the size of a mid sized phone book and are too big and heavy for anything but automotive use.

I have found this title to be very interesting, and very informative at the same time. It provides a great deal of background information and historical facts for each of the trails it details. The book also provides some historical and other information on the state of Utah, including info on the types of wildlife and plantlife that can be found in the different climate of Utah.

It includes many trails, all over the state. As the title suggests, mosts of the trails are ones that give you an alternate route, or backcountry route, to or through a city/town. The only reason that I didn't give it five stars is that I would like to see some more maps of the smaller, shorter off road trails in Utah.

Overall, this is an excellent resource to have, and I have found it very enjoyable. There are great trails and wonderful details in the book. I would say it is worth the buy.

We have used this throughout central and southwest Utah. It's great for finding that little known unimproved road you've heard about, or planning your trip, and most importantly for knowing just what you are getting into when you go through that cattle gate that leads away from the beaten bath. The trail ratings are accurate, the instructions clear, it lets you know whether there is a way back out, or if you need to be looking for a turnaround, and unlike the dude at the gas station, doesn't forget that you might need 18 inch clearance or a winch on this one. I recommend it highly, it can make the difference between an exciting adventure and a frightening ordeal

I am a novice at working on my bike. This book has assisted me thus far in some basic maintenance. The instructions are clear and easy to understand and follow.

This book has plenty of color pictures and the text has enough information to perform most of the maintenance or repairs in a mountain Bike. I found this book very useful, being a self taught weekend "mechanic". Overall I recommend this book, I also have the Big Blue Book that is a little less graphic, I think its a good idea to have (and read)at least these two books if you want to do bike maintenance specially in models with newer components.

This book is OK. The pictures are a little small and the writer sounds like a non-engineer...

This is a super book and pretty much all you really need to maintain your mtn bike. I'm so turned off by the thousand page manual books on bike repair. This book does it in only few hundred pages and in full color. Foreword by Gary Fisher, the father of mtn biking, lets you know this book is the real deal!

Both beginners and experienced mountain bike users will benefit from a survey of how to keep the bike in peak condition - and with its specific focus on the mountain bike apart from others, no better home reference can be had than MOUNTAIN BIKE MAINTENANCE. From tools and workshop equipment to avoiding problems which lead to maintenance needs, chapters cover all part of a bike, including on-trail repair tips, and come from an experienced bicycling magazine editor who has worked for a number of major cycling publications.

Diane C. Donovan, Editor
California Bookwatch

As usual with Ken Brubaker, sharp and clear pictures of Jeeps in action. Large, easy to read calendar.

Bob Waar's book is an excellent prep for begining offroaders. I bought his book in the seventies and still refer to it today. I am searching for some copies of it now so I can pass them on to my grown children who now own their own jeeps. I won't give up my own copy of this book- its that good. This book has lots of photos to enjoy and an easy to read text. There is a section on tire performance that gets somewhat technical but still is easy to follow. Bob Waar gives tips on preping your off road vehicle as well as assorted emergency items to carry according to the length of your offroad journey. The book contains info on how to use an electric winch, a come-a-long, a hi-lift jack, and fun with fourwheeler clubs. This is a 1970s edition book so the vehicles photographed are not the flashy SUVs for today's luxury highway driving. The pictures are of working Jeeps, Broncos, Blazers and Scouts. This is A five star book!

Awesome-Awesome photography. Includes basic history of various relevant automakers and models. i scored this book used very cheap and absolutely love it for the full-page pictures alone, which are enhanced by the extra-large size of the book itself. Not much technical data, in case that is for what you are looking.

Excellent book full of information about MTB parts including differences from one brand to another. Full of drawings that helps understand how things should be done.

If you are overwhelmed by all the moving parts or are just looking for a reference, this book is for you.

This book contains detailed descriptions and illustrations of everything you need to know to maintain and tweak your mountain bike.

This book was recommended by a friend of mine to facilitate my Padawan ways of bike maintenance. I'm very impressed, and the illustrations are excellent. Everything is broken down into the most basic steps when making a repair/modification. It's so much easier to maintain and repair your own bike, than to have your LBS do it. Don't be a tool, buy the book.

zinns book is right up to date on keeping your hi tech bike in good
shape,the best i have read

Now although I ride alot, I'm not really big on reading Mountain bike books from cover to cover. And I actually refer to the companion Mountain Biking DVD-Zinn and the Art of Mountain Bike Maintenance DVD more often. This one, on the other hand is just a wealth of information. It covers so many different areas. I've looked at other books in the stores. If you want to own just one Mountain bike maintenance book, this is it. I myself only have one-this one. If you are a more visual person, as I am - get his DVD video. It's awesome too.Zinn and the Art of Mountain Bike Maintenance

I often ride my mountain bike at night and use these lighting products:Down Low Glow Lighting Kit - Two Tubes-Envy(green)

This book is great! Me and my Jeep are loving it. Once reading the little part from the page I knew I had to have the book to atleast finish that story.

This book has some very useful information and is very easy to understand. I thought that the extra equipment/gear lists were a bit long and for myself some is not realistic to carry. If the information in this book is combined with other publications a good list of gear to carry on a 4 wheel adventure could be developed. The additional resources listed in this book were also very helpful. For new and experienced off-roaders this book is a useful tool.

I expected something different, so I don't blame the author, who has written a nice little treatise on 4 wheel driving for beginners. Absolute beginners. This book is a response to the recent popularity of SUV's, and to the fact that many folks have not a clue about what 4 wheel drive is or how to use it. It starts off at ground zero with the heartwarming little tale of a corporate lawyer and his management/executive wife buying their first SUV (awww...) and then taking it out for progressively friskier adventures until they get to really test themselves. Made me want to throw up, but then it's just not my style. If this is your style, if you honestly don't know which wheels get the power when one is stuck, if you have never used a high-lift jack, if you think a Land Rover is the functional equivalent of a Honda CR-V, then this is the book for you. The nutty title should have tipped me off, but I had my guard down and it slipped past me. It's foolish to think you can learn this stuff from a book, anyway...that right there is the BIG fallacy. Get out, get muddy and bust your knuckles and write your own book.

This book is a basic introduction to driving off-road. If you don't know what a locker is, how it works or why you might want one for off-road use, you'll find the answers in this book. On the other hand, if you've decided to save money on a locker by welding the spider gears together in your garage, this is not the book for you.

Having said that, I think it's a very good introduction and I knocked off one star for its only fault -- I found the organization a bit strange. If you read through the book cover-to-cover though, you'll know where to find what you need in the book. I'd give it four and a half stars if I could.

On Amazon's recommendation, I bought this book with The Off-Road 4-Wheel Drive Book by Jack Jackson, which is a very different animal. Jackson's book is for hard-core expeditions more than recreational off-roading. Many paragraphs start with sentences like, "As I forded a raging river during the rainy season in Pakistan, the engine suddenly stalled." If you're planning on crossing the Sahara, I'd recommend Jackson's book for you. Even if you're not, he does give good ideas for tough situations and you know you're getting advice that's been tested off-road in some of the worst conditions imaginable.

The bottom line: if you're just starting out, buy DeLong's book alone. If you find yourself venturing off-road more and more and you'd like to be more independent, buy Jackson's book as a follow-up.

recently purchased a Jeep with the intention of doing more 4x4 off-road exploration in the upcoming months. In my search for information I stumbled upon Brad DeLong's 4-Wheel Freedom: The Art of Off-Road Driving. This book clearly and confidently spelled out all that I needed to know to begin my adventures in a safe (individually as well as environmentally), respectful and confident manner. I was so pleased to find the author's compassion and sound respect for the environment and how he simply challenges his readers to have the integrity to do the same.

4x4 Wheel Freedom: The Art of Off-Road Driving is clearly organized into 14 chapters and several information filled appendices with resources for continued education. Packing Up - The Basic Toolbox, Rocks and Ravines - Basic Crawling, and Winches and Jacks - Up and Out are some examples of the chapters included. Each chapter presents basic knowledge and details on its theme and further clarifies the information with personal accounts that seem to wrap it all together for the reader.

This is an excellent addition to any personal library or bookshelf! Anyone who drives a vehicle with 4x4 and/or owns an SUV (Sports Utility Vehicle) will find useful information in this text and will benefit from its application at sometime in their life as a driver. Brad Delong presents information for all - from those experienced in 4x4 adventures to those with even a small bit of interest in 4x4s.

Bottom line - well worth the money, but there is a 3rd edition available. I ordered the 2nd edition by mistake and returned it. The 3rd edition is in color and MUCH easier to read. 3rd edition has a 'bit' more 4 stroke info but not enough to justify buying the 3rd edition if you have the 2nd.

Good book. Good for beginners and as a reference for the experienced.

You may want to take some of the things he says with a "grain of salt" or "does this apply to me" attitude though. Page 22 has a Maintenance Interval Chart that suggests changing the transmission oil every 2 hours and a top end rebuild every 10 hours - or less depending on riding conditions. Not sure I want to change the oil in the middle of a 4-hour easy trail ride. Yes it probably is supposed to apply to 2 strokes on the mx track but he does not state that.

Just buy it.


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not a bad book for most two stroke motorcycles, however the book is very poor when it comes to modern four stroke machines which exist today, it discusses the likes of xrs, which would be very out of date with yzfs and crfs of modern times. but all in all worth the price

I have 2 boys who race MX and off road and I race off road and we do most of our own repair and tuning work. This book makes it much easier. It goes way past the repair manual with time saving tips and necessary illustrations. The tuning stuff is completely missing from the repair manual. I don't know if this is THE best book to have in the garage but it works for me. I've read it almost all through and highly recommend it to someone who races or pits for a racer.

The Trail Bikes is a really good book.If you are looking for a
dirt bike,or if your looking for how to ride one this is the
place for you go to.Believe me this is the place for you to
go to.GOOD LOOK

Eric Gorr's book is a great help to all dirtbike owners. In addition to your bikes workshop manual it should cover absolutely EVERYTHING you will ever need to do to your bike.

The writing is good, it's organized and to the point. There are specific sections for all the major models.
This is one of the better tecnical books I own, and I highly recommend it.

I recommend every automotive engineer to use this book, It's a good reference.

The book covers dynamics of ground vehicles over hard surfaces and unprepared terrain - mechanics of vehicle-terrain interactions, terramechanics. Tracked vehicles such as a military tank or a bulldozer that is propelled by tracks instead of pneumatic tires are also covered in detail in this book. There is also attention to air-cushion vehicles (hovercrafts). However, the guided ground vehicles which are constrained to move along a fixed path, such as railway vehicles and tracked levitated vehicles are not covered in this book.

There is a very good chapter on the mechanics of pneumatic tires, which has both theoretical and practical information. Attention is also given to performance of tires on wet surfaces. This issue is frequently overlooked by the other vehicle dynamics books; however, the behavior of tires on wet surfaces is of considerable interest from a safety point of view, as many accidents occur on slippery roads. The tire is also analyzed as both spring and a damper. There are useful graphs and tables in this chapter, as well as throughout the whole book. The table of damping coefficient of tires shows that the damping coefficient of tire drops with increase of the inflation pressure.

Mechanics of vehicle-terrain interactions studies distribution of stresses in the terrain under vehicular loads, empirical methods for predicting off-road vehicle performance, a computer-aided method for evaluating the performance of vehicles with flexible tracks, and so on.

Performance characteristics are covered separately for road and off-road vehicles. For the road vehicles, the author analyzes equation of motion and maximum tractive effort, aerodynamic forces and moments, vehicle power plant and transmission characteristics, prediction of vehicle performance, operating fuel economy, engine and transmission matching and braking performance. For off-road vehicles, the author examines drawbar performance, fuel economy of cross-country operations, transport productivity and efficiency, mobility map and mobility profile, selection of vehicle configurations for off-road operations.

Handling characteristics of road vehicles and steering of tracked vehicles are also separately analyzed.

There is a very good chapter on vehicle ride characteristics and human response to vibration.

I also recommend "Race Car Vehicle Dynamics" by William F. Milliken and Douglas L. Milliken, which is also a good compromise between theoretical and practical information.

It covers various types of ground vehicles and the authors has done a tremendus job to produce such a good book especially on engineering point of view. Well and easy understanding for Engineers with lots of mathematically formulaes and explainations.

It worth to read over and over again.

A book for reference if involving ground vehicle dynamic computations.

I really enjoyed the book. Great writing style, very engaging and humorous, yet usefully informative.

If volume 2 ever comes out it will more than likely be a good book. Volume 1 comes up short. Volume 1 is 2 wheel drive.

I was sad to hear there is no vol 2. I wanted to get it for the bit about tires and other advice. Oh well. While I wish this was a more complete book, I can understand not going to the work for vol 2 if this didn't sell better. All I can say is if Vol 2 is ever published, I will be in line.

Love the cartoons and the humor, esp APF. (Buy the book to learn more about APF)

This book is very easy to read cover-to-cover. It is entertaining, and easy to understand. A couple of things got annoying. There are 4-5 pages of "How to pack a cooler" which will leave you wondering "why did i just read that?" and many many references about "Volume 2". Much of the information that i wanted from this book is apparently going to be published in volume 2. I will buy that one when it comes out.

This is written by a colorful guy, who seems to have a lot of experience. It makes a good entertaining read, but the reality is that it comes up short with technical info. Probably the best part of the book is that there are good, if not excessive, equipment lists provided. These lists make me wonder how I ever got home with the junk I used to bring (some pliers, a flashlight, a can of beanieweenies...). The down sides, though, are numerous: There's a lot of ink wasted in the telling of stories where the lessons are fairly obvious. Much of the recommendations are based on personal experience, rather than actual data. The author's experience is restricted to Southern California and Mexico (hot, dry, sandy stuff). Other environments/terrain are glossed over so badly that they're useless (his treatment of snow, for example). The most dissapointing thing is that in an effort to cut down on the length, they decided to create "Volume II" which was never published. It leaves the reader feeling ripped off, because the more difficult and technical topics were moved there (e.g. winching). The book is entertaining to read, and I did learn a few things, but overall it's very basic. It's written for folks who bought an SUV, but have never been anywhere an ambitious driver couldn't go in a honda civic. If you don't understand what kind of differential your car has, this book's for you. If you think a winch might be in your future, then move along.