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Sheldon Brown's Bicycle Technical Info

sheldonbrown.com

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Re: Sheldon Brown's Bicycle Technical Info

#101

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

I've been a fan of this website for ages. What I like is the no-nonsense approach and referring to the underlying mechanical principles.

Cycles are an interesting invention as it's easy to look at and figure out what the parts are doing and this leads to a huge number of people thinking that they can improve certain bits. Unfortunately, most "improvements" aren't and there's very good reasons why cycles have evolved to their modern designs. In engineering terms, I find it fascinating as cycles are all about trade-offs e.g. strength/weight/aerodynamics/cost

Re: Sheldon Brown's Bicycle Technical Info

#102

Post by bguthrie »

jmclnx wrote: post #23
rsingel wrote: post #14

R.I.P. Sheldon https://www.wired.com/2008/02/sheldon-brown-w/

Came to say the same, I meet him once in his shop, what a great person he was. His wife also has a great amount of bicycle knowledge from what I heard.

His wife was a professor at the Northeastern computer science department when I went there. A wonderful teacher.

Re: Sheldon Brown's Bicycle Technical Info

#103

Post by lkbm »

mlacks wrote: post #83
marttt wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's another, ultimate bike derailleur geekery -- Disraeli Gears: https://www.disraeligears.co.uk/site/home.html

truly awesome how many ways you can go deep into something. Would have never thought to spend so much time on derailleurs

The blessing and the curse of the Internet. A few years ago, I was getting new bicycle tires and fellow overly analytic bicycle nerds had built a machine to measure the rolling resistance and puncture resistance of each tire[0], so I of course I "had" to spend hours pouring over all the different options.

This was probably a more sensible use of my time than when I spent hours trying to determine which pedals I should get. Is there a reason to get low profile? Oh, this one is 20 grams lighter--oh, but some people report it breaking more than this other one.

To quote on of the best article titles of all time, reality has a surprising amount of detail.

[0] https://www.bicyclerollingresistance.com/

Re: Sheldon Brown's Bicycle Technical Info

#104

Post by jacquesm »

aziaziazi wrote: post #100
rectang wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wish more of the web was like this. A devious genie maliciously interprets your wish, and… Poof! This website’s content is now regurgitated across dozens of AI slop websites.

> ShelBroCo is revising our business model to include review of AI-generated articles and imagery https://www.sheldonbrown.com/openai.html

Getting there! That picture is priceless.

Re: Sheldon Brown's Bicycle Technical Info

#107

Post by compass_copium »

haritha-j wrote: post #105

Today I learnt that you're supposed to favour the front brake, and I cycle every single day as my primary means of transport. Thank you.

TBF that's a fairly contrarian view from Sheldon. I started favoring the front brake after reading his writing on it, and do find it useful. I do find it easier to go down in the ice that way though, so be careful!

Re: Sheldon Brown's Bicycle Technical Info

#108

Post by gorounditup »

When I started biking in the early 80s, Fred DeLong’s guide to cycling was THE book. But it didn’t have videos (obviously). My interpretations weren’t standard because I never had another human to compare with. Sheldon’s guides were the logical torch passing from Fred and it was neat to see how the things I had been doing for 30+ years we’re supposed to look.

Re: Sheldon Brown's Bicycle Technical Info

#109

Post by prmoustache »

neoromantique wrote: post #52

Ask HN: How does one archive websites like this without being a d-ck? I want to save this for offline use, but I think recursive wget is a bit poor manners, is there established way one should approach it, get it from archive somehow?

As long as you don't mirror daily and use rate limit there is no reason you would be a dick doing it.

FWIW I have a local copy of sheldown brown's website I mirrored a few years back when they announced the shop would close as I expected they would eventually shutdown the website too. I don't know if his wife is still alive, she had her own space nor if someone has taken over the maintenance.

Re: Sheldon Brown's Bicycle Technical Info

#110

Post by alexjplant »

zampano wrote: post #38
klum wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my favorite kind of website. An individual going into depth on a topic they're passionate (in the true sense of the word) about. Another example is Dan's Motorcycle Repair Web page [1]. A collection of such websites would be awesome. [1] http://dansmc.com/

Me too! I'm a big fan of Rob Robinette's guitar amp page [1] for similar reasons [1] https://robrobinette.com/Amp_Stuff.htm

robrob is basically a real-life Buckaroo Banzai... amp technician, car/motorcycle enthusiast, world helicopter champion, sharpshooter, sysadmin, ham, and owner of at least one Kei truck. We can all only hope to be as cool as him when we grow up.
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