I can think of plenty of examples where quick steps for fixing a bike might come in handy, so in that respect Bike Doctor certainly fills a need. But your desire to purchase a $4.99 app for that purpose may wane, unless your bike is falling apart every other day.
The Bike Doctor app offers 20 simple guides for fixing various parts of your bike, with detailed explanations designed for both bike laymen and serious riders. It shouldn’t exactly come as a surprise that the instructions are carefully crafted since the app was designed by two writers, UK blogger Andreas Kambanis and author Ron Forrester.
As a bonus, there are pictures associated with most of the how-to-fix-it steps in the app. Some of the pictures are quite helpful, illustrating exactly what the instructions are explaining, but others could benefit from a few more photos. While the descriptions are great, there are some things (in this case, fixing a bike) that are just easier to visualize with the proper photos. Videos, in fact, would go along way toward making the explanations as clear as possible and justifying the price.
Aside from the repair instructions, which cover everything from lubricating your bike to fixing the seat, wheels, handlebars and derailleur, there’s not much else here. A neat photo of a bike can help you pinpoint exactly which repair you need, but overall, this app just feels a little too empty.
The information here is solid, the pictures are all right, but there needs to be more substance for people to throw $4.99 into an app. I don’t doubt that an update and/or a price reduction would make the Bike Doctor app much more appealing to all sorts of cyclists.
