[HN Gopher] Sheldon Brown's Bicycle Technical Info
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Sheldon Brown's Bicycle Technical Info
Author : ostacke
Score : 435 points
Date : 2026-02-06 15:40 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.sheldonbrown.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.sheldonbrown.com)
| carabiner wrote:
| Random tidbit, his daughter is a researcher/mathematician at
| OpenAI.
| hackingonempty wrote:
| ...and his widow, Harriet Fell, is a CS Professor (emerita) at
| Northeastern[0], and an accomplished cyclist who completed
| Paris-Brest-Paris (a 1200km ride and to qualify you have to
| complete 200km, 300km, 400km, and 600km rides in the 8 months
| leading up to it.)
|
| 0: https://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/fell/
| foco_tubi wrote:
| For PBP2027 you have all of 2026, as well as 2027 leading up
| to registration, to complete the required BRMs.
|
| I'm riding my qualifying 300k tomorrow!
| markstos wrote:
| Good luck!
| cos2pi wrote:
| Allez!
| dan-bailey wrote:
| Oh thank god. I was planning on a 200km, 300km, and 400km
| this year, all as mental preparation, and then having to
| blitz next year by traveling to warmer locales. I I'm doing
| my 200km at the end of April, and my 300km in early July,
| followed by a 400km gravel in early August. Going to be a
| grind.
|
| Good luck tomorrow!
| eschneider wrote:
| Nice! Old me and my old bike are sticking to 200kms this
| year. :)
| mikestew wrote:
| Allez! Allez! Bonne chance pour demain!
| bobchadwick wrote:
| I'm never going to ride in the Paris-Brest-Paris, but someday
| I'm gonna make a Paris-Brest pastry:
| https://www.seriouseats.com/paris-brest-pate-a-choux-with-
| pr...
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| I tried qualifying for PBP with some friends and we were
| fried on the 600. We did some longer rides, but never so
| intensively and without rest. Such good times. Maybe one day
| (likely when my kids are grown) I'll try again. I still dream
| of eating so much French food after annihilating myself on a
| bicycle. It sound incredible.
| rindalir wrote:
| I TA'ed for Harriet, she's awesome!
| djmips wrote:
| Let's hear it for Harriet! Keeping the website going. I
| wonder if it has a long term plan?
| keithjl wrote:
| This website is such a treasure. When I was first getting into
| bicycles in 2013, it was a mix of Sheldon Brown and the local
| volunteer-run co-op that taught me everything I need to know. He
| is himself a generous spirit, advocating for DIY tooling, repair,
| and reuse.
|
| I would highly recommend anyone into bicycles to try building
| their own wheel using his article.
| fyrabanks wrote:
| Same. I built my first wheel according to his specs. His whole
| website is so helpful and thoughtfully written. RIP.
| frikk wrote:
| My quick story: I built up an old 90s cyclocross bike and his
| website was the main reason I have this beast of a
| frankenbike gravel bike. I found his article "8 of 9 on 7"
| and it changed my life: Take a 9 gear cog, remove one, and it
| fits perfectly on a 7-speed cassette body.
|
| Then I found his other article on an alternate wiring for a
| shimano mountain bike RD-310 7/8 speed drive train (which
| unlocks 9-speed ability), which thus let me use the rugged
| 7/8-speed derailleur for the cassette WITH shimano dura-ace
| indexed bar-end shifters (which use, get this, 9-speed
| spacing on an 8-speed index because it made their system
| "proprietary"). All of this works together flawlessly <3 <3
| RIP sheldon brown.
| klum wrote:
| 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/
| marttt wrote:
| Here's another, ultimate bike derailleur geekery -- Disraeli
| Gears: https://www.disraeligears.co.uk/site/home.html
| mlacks wrote:
| truly awesome how many ways you can go deep into something.
| Would have never thought to spend so much time on
| derailleurs
| jacquesm wrote:
| That site is gold. I've had one that was a complete
| mystery, it all looked and felt perfect but still, it
| didn't work. I was tempted to toss it and replace it but
| the fact that it was a vintage Campagnolo made replacing
| it extremely expensive and I couldn't even find a proper
| replacement. So in the end I figured out what the problem
| was and ended up repairing it.
| lkbm wrote:
| 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/
| zampano wrote:
| 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
| alexjplant wrote:
| 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.
| suncemoje wrote:
| I started checking out Dan's Motorcycle Repair Web page,
| expecting to read about Motorcycle Repair, and the first
| thing I do read about is the Bible. Good lord!
| marttt wrote:
| Yeah. There's probably tens of thousands of internet users
| worldwide with that same story. Myself included: when I was
| fixing my Bianchi retro road bike's derailleur etc some 20
| years ago as a univesity freshman, this site was a definite
| gold mine, immensely helpful, and taught me a ton. One of my
| favorite procrastination rabbit holes as well back then. :) And
| -- a prime example of 1990s era internet and information
| freedom and layman-level enthusiasm -- selfless sharing of
| knowledge (and, I wonder if he also used Notepad to write the
| HTML :). Thanks, Mr Brown, for everything, all the way from
| Estonia!
|
| PS, interesting to note that Mr Brown seemed to be quite a fan
| of sci-fi books: https://www.sheldonbrown.com/org/books.html
| dlenski wrote:
| > I would highly recommend anyone into bicycles to try building
| their own wheel using his article.
|
| Hear, hear. It's an incredible resource.
|
| I got into building and fixing bikes around 2004, and built a
| couple of fixed-gear bikes on a shoestring budget using parts
| from Nashbar.com, and Sheldon Brown's wheelbuilding guide.
|
| I also corresponded with Sheldon a few times via email, and
| created the Wikipedia article about him. He contributed to it a
| few times himself, before his untimely death in 2008.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheldon_Brown_(bicycle_mechani...
| simlevesque wrote:
| RIP to this legendary hacker.
| cguess wrote:
| Amen. If you've ever had to deal with repairing French frames
| from before the 1980s you know that finding a memory leak in a
| race condition is _easy_ in comparison.
| wampwampwhat wrote:
| I'm going to repeat this verbatim in my next technical
| interview. I still have nightmares about an old peugeot px10
| cos2pi wrote:
| A wealth of knowledge here, especially helpful for wheelbuilding
| and checking the compatibility of archaic sizing systems. Lennard
| Zinn is another great reference in bike maintenance:
| https://lennardzinn.substack.com/
| hackingonempty wrote:
| The old Web... Thanks to Sheldon for teaching me how to fix my
| bike, how to launch from a stop, and how to April Fools.
|
| https://www.sheldonbrown.com/real-man.html
|
| https://www.sheldonbrown.com/tork-grip.html
| diggyhole wrote:
| Thank you for sharing. This is wholesome as f*ck.
| foco_tubi wrote:
| Sheldon was a wealth of information when I first started
| tinkering on my vintage 3-speed back in 2007. I would pore over
| these simple pages for hours in my dorm at college instead of
| studying. That led to dropping out and working in the bike
| industry for almost 10 years. It was a great preparation in
| problem solving and systems-oriented thinking before I got into
| programming.
| jacquesm wrote:
| I wished more of the web was like this.
|
| if you like this you may also like:
|
| https://outspokencyclist.com/tag/harriet-fell/
| II2II wrote:
| I loved the wedding photo. It also left me wondering if they
| played "Bicycle Built for Two" at their wedding. It would be
| appropriate, both for the bicycle angle and because Dr. Fell
| moved over to a computer science department.
| rectang wrote:
| > _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.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Probably, yes. Try finding hard info about electronics. You
| really can't because there are a million zero effort sites by
| people that position themselves as teachers that really are
| absolute beginners themselves. And because they run Google
| ads they get priority in the results.
| aziaziazi wrote:
| > ShelBroCo is revising our business model to include review
| of AI-generated articles and imagery
|
| https://www.sheldonbrown.com/openai.html
| jacquesm wrote:
| Getting there! That picture is priceless.
| czscout wrote:
| Sheldon's website is such an awesome relic of the internet we all
| miss. It still has a ton of relevant information if you ever find
| yourself dealing with obscure wheel sizes or something like that.
| Love it. RIP.
| rsingel wrote:
| R.I.P. Sheldon
|
| https://www.wired.com/2008/02/sheldon-brown-w/
| jmclnx wrote:
| 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.
| cbm-vic-20 wrote:
| And the shop itself closed in 2021 after being open for
| nearly 70 years. I purchased my Brompton there.
| jmclnx wrote:
| That is a shame, I figured Harris would be the last small
| shop left.
|
| Unfortunately, I have seen a few family owned shops taken
| over by a "large" company, namely Trek. Others have just
| closed. I only know of one or 2 family owned shop left
| these days.
| bguthrie wrote:
| His wife was a professor at the Northeastern computer science
| department when I went there. A wonderful teacher.
| bsimpson wrote:
| That's actually more recently than I would have guessed. He had
| already departed by the time I discovered bike building in the
| early 2010s.
|
| Time is strange.
| kccqzy wrote:
| Ah that's the reason why reading several articles on the site
| it felt out of date. For example the website states "Disc
| brakes have become increasingly popular on mountain bikes and
| are gaining some popularity for other bicycles" whereas in my
| experience disc brakes are popular for all kinds of bicycles.
| ssl-3 wrote:
| A lot of the information is indeed old, but then so are a lot
| of bikes. :)
|
| Things are still being updated, primarily by John Allen.
| There's some writing about changes on the blog:
| https://sheldonbrown.com/blog/
|
| (I have every expectation that he'd be quite pleased to
| entertain well-written updates from other parties, if anyone
| feels like being constructive. John is pretty easy to
| contact.)
| hinkley wrote:
| I'm a little surprised to learn that Jobst Brandt outlived
| Sheldon Brown. He was 9 years older than him and Brown died at
| 63.
| seszett wrote:
| 72 is still an awfully young age to die.
| hinkley wrote:
| For a couple of known cyclists, 63 and 72 is a bit
| worrisome.
| Metacelsus wrote:
| MS sucks. We need to end Epstein-Barr virus!
| xmddmx wrote:
| > Sheldon Brown, a beloved iconoclast bicycle tech guru, died
| Sunday from a heart attack. He was 68 63.
|
| Curious, what does "He was 68 63" mean. Is it a bicycle gear
| joke about his age at death?
| kyorochan wrote:
| Probably just a typo. He was 63.
| Melatonic wrote:
| Surprisingly young
| lemper wrote:
| https://archive.ph/BhxAx
| hilsdev wrote:
| This was a major influence for me, both getting into single speed
| and fixed gear biking before the craze, and building geo cities
| sites with my friends in high school
| 2color wrote:
| same
| tetris11 wrote:
| I'm so glad they went back to the old design.
|
| There was a point a few years back where someone did a site
| revamp with modern CSS and all that horrible jazz in clear
| attempts to monetize this incredible resource.
|
| Happy to hear they reverted
| ian-g wrote:
| I used to work on bikes professionally, and this was the first
| place we went for help. Even today, it's one of the clearest
| resources out there
| chromatin wrote:
| When I was a young(er) postdoc and had to overhaul my bicycle --
| my main transportation to work-- this site was invaluable.
| Forever grateful to Sheldon.
| comprev wrote:
| I learned wheel building many years ago from Sheldon's website
| and that lead to many great memories fixing other racer's wheels
| around camp fires in my 20s.
|
| A fantastic resource!
| matsemann wrote:
| Similar story. As a student I bought an old bike and restored
| it thanks to lots of info I found from Sheldon. And building a
| wheel was such a fun but weird experience. Part mechanics, part
| art.
|
| I ended up writing my thesis on bicycle wheels after this. Or,
| it's a thesis on optimization algorithms, but I managed to play
| around with optimizing wheels as the "real world application".
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10410813
| shrubby wrote:
| Still awesome.
|
| And the web design!
| sloosh wrote:
| I always loved this quote from here:
| https://www.sheldonbrown.com/stuck-seatposts.html
|
| > To update an old saying, 28 grams of prevention are worth 454
| grams of cure.
| hinkley wrote:
| I have a vague recollection of someone using a cheap old saddle
| and a rubber mallet to unstick a seat post.
|
| Friends don't let friends put aluminum posts in steel frames.
| Especially if those friends ride in the rain instead of wussing
| out and calling for someone to pick them up.
| behole wrote:
| Legend! I was a bicycle mechanic for a decade and this guy was
| our jezus! He influenced so many of my creative bicycle builds
| and exposed me to things like Alex Singer, Rene Herse, bicycle
| quarterly etc.. Big love for Sheldon and all his passion and
| work.
| sorbusherra wrote:
| i worked as a bicycle mechanic when I got completely tired of it-
| world. This website saved my ass numerous times while fixing
| bicycles. Absolutely legendary webdesign also that just works
| well.
| FpUser wrote:
| Used to be my worship place along with the crazyguyonabike and
| Ken Kifer
| gashad wrote:
| Ken Kifer wrote a bunch of amazing bicycle content! Here's a
| mirror of his pages:
| https://www.phred.org/~alex/kenkifer/www.kenkifer.com/
| prmoustache wrote:
| Thanks for mirroring this. Love this page, such a throwback:
| https://www.phred.org/~alex/kenkifer/www.kenkifer.com/progra.
| ..
| bookstore-romeo wrote:
| This is an incredible ressource without which I feel so many
| bikes and bike parts would go to waste. At the bike coop I
| volunteer at we're trying to follow Sheldon's footsteps by
| collecting information and procedures that are about making bikes
| & parts last for as long as they possibly can. What's truly
| amazing is that all that documentation is amazing for both low-
| resource repairs on the cheapest of old parts and vintage part
| enthusiasts.
|
| I think Sheldon Brown's impact is a valuable lesson on
| sustainable engineering and the enormous role documentation plays
| in it
| sebastian_z wrote:
| There is (was?) a bike shop in Pittsburgh, Kraynick's Bike Shop
| [1], where you could bring your bike and use their tools. It was
| nice, and I appreciate the DIY ethics and generosity.
|
| [1] https://kraynicksbikeshop.weebly.com/
| barbs wrote:
| I get the sense that there are a good number of these around
| the world. There's one I go to Melbourne sometimes, it's
| awesome.
|
| https://thebikeshed.org.au/
| jannniii wrote:
| So happy to see this featured here! Had been tinkering with bikes
| a long time before finding Sheldon's site, but when I did I was
| dumbstruck by the amount of insight. And to top that, what a
| person he was. RIP
| sebnukem2 wrote:
| A web site as old as the internet, and still relevant.
| manithree wrote:
| I lost my "Clear Creek Bike Book" in the 1980's but eventually
| Sheldon made me not miss it at all.
|
| It's not as comprehensive, and more corporate than Sheldon's
| site, but I currently love Park Tool's youtube channel
| (https://www.youtube.com/@parktool). They shamelessly mention
| their tools, but they frequently give alternatives like, you can
| get this park tool for pushing your disc brake pads back into
| place, or you can just use a plastic tire tool.
| nerdponx wrote:
| Interesting timing, the Park Tool Youtube presenter just
| retired. The guy with the big mustache.
| neoromantique wrote:
| 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?
| OJFord wrote:
| A single user's one-off recursive wget seems fine? Browsers
| also support it iirc, individual pages at very least (and saved
| to the same place, the links will work).
|
| No doubt it's already in many archive sites though, you could
| just fetch from them instead of the original?
| neoromantique wrote:
| I ask in more general sense, if there is a way to fetch this
| stuff directly from webarchive or something along those
| lines.
|
| Gotta hit the search I feel :)
| ssl-3 wrote:
| In the old-web days, I just used wget with slow pacing (and by
| "pacing" I mean: I don't need it to be done today or even this
| week, so if it takes a rather long time then that's fine. Slow
| helped keep me from mucking up the latency on my dial-up
| connection, too.)
|
| I don't think that's being a dick for old-web sites that still
| exist today. Most of the information is text, the photos tend
| to be small, it's all generally static (ie, light-weight to
| serve), and the implicit intent is for people to use it.
|
| But it's pretty slow-moving, so getting it from archive.org
| would probably suffice if being zero-impact is the goal.
|
| (Or, you know: Just email the dude that runs it like it's 1998
| again, say hi, and ask. In this particular instance, it's still
| being maintained.)
| userbinator wrote:
| The Internet Archive probably has it already.
| pabs3 wrote:
| Yep, saved by ArchiveTeam a couple of years ago:
|
| https://archive.fart.website/archivebot/viewer/?q=sheldonbro.
| ..
| prmoustache wrote:
| 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.
| ho_schi wrote:
| I've learned about that website only four years ago. It is still
| helpful, teaches me how to install front derailleurs properly (as
| deep and far to the front as possible, better chain line with
| less trimming and better shifting).
|
| The German Wikipedalia tries to safe some stuff.
| LTL_FTC wrote:
| This is such a great website. I have enjoyed reading the articles
| in the past. It was the final push that inspired me to build my
| own wheel set instead of buying a complete when I was building my
| new mountain bike piece by piece. The art and zen (and
| frustration of trying to feed a shift/brake line through a
| frame), I tell ya.
| luqtas wrote:
| i built a set of wheels following his instructions, using my
| brake pads as the reference for centering and truing, rode dozen
| of thousands kilometers on them, daily, part of my courier job.
| all the wheels i had after that old Mongoose were also built the
| same way. i cycle a 1997 Trek 430 as my main transportation and i
| freaking love it. soldered a custom rack for panniers after its
| geometry. farewell Sheldon, i literally read your entire blog, at
| least twice
|
| if i had found a cycling crazie to date back in the days, i would
| certainly use "building a tandem" section of that blog for
| suuuure
| analog31 wrote:
| Similar story here. Sheldon's site took the mystery out of
| wheel building, at least for my basic needs. I was motivated by
| acquiring a couple of ancient Sturmey Archer hubs and wanting
| to put them on modern rims. Those wheels have been bulletproof.
| smackeyacky wrote:
| I did build a tandem based on Sheldon's website. Never used it
| in anger on the road just cycle paths, used to have two kids on
| the back and a third following on their own bike. Because of
| the age differences between the kids it was one activity we
| could enjoy together on the local cycle paths.
|
| It's amazing what a difference just a little generosity of
| knowledge can make in other peoples lives.
| Melatonic wrote:
| Problem with tandems is the person in back (who doesn't steer)
| ends up doing way more of the work
| recursive wrote:
| That's the stoker. Curious how you came to this conclusion.
| In my experience both riders can work as hard as they want.
| Or not. The only constraint is that both must have the same
| cadence.
| skhr0680 wrote:
| a lot of the changes and updates to articles since Sheldon Brown
| died are controversial, I recommend checking out an old version
| on the Wayback machine
| ak217 wrote:
| If you liked Sheldon Brown (who was a treasure but the content is
| out of date now), definitely check out the Park Tool videos on
| YouTube. Calvin Jones, their director of education, recently
| retired after building an incredible library of instructional
| videos. As an amateur bike mechanic, I wouldn't have been able to
| build or maintain my bikes without Calvin's videos.
| kyorochan wrote:
| When I very briefly worked at a bike shop even some of the pros
| said they basically learned everything from Park Tool's Youtube
| videos!
| Melatonic wrote:
| Their bike repair manual is awesome as well !
| marttt wrote:
| +1. I would add RJ The Bike Guy's youtube channel --
| straightforward, down-to-earth, no-nonsense videos, may prove
| immensely useful if you have simple, traditional, cheaper-end
| bicycles at home, and only a basic set of tools. Excellent
| explainer; has similar "vibe" to Sheldon Brown's site IMO:
| https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaAK2FaxQ2xiBbAUVZsvDYQ
| Melatonic wrote:
| Love this site - ran a small side business in college tuning up
| people's bikes. Sheldon's site was so helpful
|
| Always tried to street people away turning a perfectly good road
| bike into a fixed gear but it was the rage at the time
| Duanemclemore wrote:
| RIP Sheldon Brown. His enthusiasm for and ability with bicycles -
| and his clear and engaging way to communicate both to you - were
| a large part of getting me back into cycling as an adult.
|
| Legends Never Die.
| jibal wrote:
| I once posted in rec.bicycles.misc that I had just completed a 6
| week solo bike tour of France. Someone asked me a series of
| questions about riding and camping in France and I spent about 10
| minutes writing a response. Francophile Sheldon Brown asked if he
| could put it on his website and I was thrilled to say yes. He did
| so, formatting it and adding links and photos for the places I
| mentioned. (The page is still there but the photos and links are
| gone). Years later, a co-worker stopped by my cubicle and asked
| if I was the person who wrote that article -- he said it had
| inspired him to start bike touring ... I was again thrilled.
| Melatonic wrote:
| Highly recommend using his way of locking your bike - you can
| secure both the frame and rear wheel easily with a small U-Lock
| (harder to pry open)
|
| Front wheel is still vulnerable but if you don't use QR skewers
| you have a huge leg up
| rekoros wrote:
| A true derailer
| emsign wrote:
| I just visited his website today, when I needed to check
| something about tire widths.
| good-idea wrote:
| a truly heartwarming website and discussion. I built my wheels
| the Sheldon Way as well, I'm looking at them right now. Such a
| rare combination of wisdom and generosity. Thank you, OP, for
| posting. Also, hey all, click that donate button!
| compass_copium wrote:
| An absolute treasure. R.I.P., Sheldon.
| globular-toast wrote:
| I rebuilt a bicycle using tools in my dad's garage and basically
| just guesswork. Then I discovered this website and found out
| everything I'd done wrong. I had mismatched bearings, crap brakes
| and gears, you name it.
|
| Must admit, though, this was pre-YouTube. While I do admire
| written works like this, and I still treasure some of my cookery
| books, there's nothing like watching someone do these things.
| Especially things involving subtle skills that nobody would think
| to write down, like adjusting derailleur gears. Learning by
| copying is the original and best way for many things.
| andrewshadura wrote:
| Too bad there isn't something like this bug focused on Dutch and
| German city bikes. There's a lot of knowledge not covered in one
| single place, spread over hundreds of small webpages, YouTube
| videos etc in multiple languages. Some of it just passed as word
| of mouth.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| 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
| haritha-j wrote:
| 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.
| compass_copium wrote:
| 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!
| analog31 wrote:
| Since I've worked on a lot of bikes for friends and family
| members, the condition of the front and rear brake pads tells
| me that many casual cyclists are afraid of their front brakes.
| The rear pads will be totally worn down and the fronts
| practically new. The advice I give people is: Don't be afraid
| of your front brake, but learn to use two-wheel braking
| effectively, and find a safe place to practice it if necessary.
| bcrack wrote:
| The service Sheldon Brown provided to cyclists worldwide cannot
| be overstated. It also becomes apparent every time one needs to
| research some bike subject involving any technology that appeared
| after his death.
| gorounditup wrote:
| 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.
| timonoko wrote:
| Hey Gemini, can you describe the imperial bicycle tire sizes
| compared to ISO in concise and preferably comical way?
|
| Trying to understand imperial bicycle tire sizing is like trying
| to learn a language where the grammar rules change based on how
| the speaker feels that morning. It's a chaotic legacy of
| Victorian engineering and regional stubbornness.
|
| Here is the breakdown of the "Imperial Nonsense" vs. the "ISO
| Sanity.... etc etc
| timonoko wrote:
| One ISO mishap I had recently. I tried to fit fat 47-622 to
| narrow 23-622 rim. Looked I ok, but when I raised pressure the
| rim cracked length-wise along the spoke-holes. Never heard this
| happening to anybody.
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