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keithjl
klum
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.
marttt
Here's another, ultimate bike derailleur geekery -- Disraeli Gears: https://www.disraeligears.co.uk/site/home.html
mlacks
truly awesome how many ways you can go deep into something. Would have never thought to spend so much time on derailleurs
zampano
Me too! I'm a big fan of Rob Robinette's guitar amp page [1] for similar reasons
alexjplant
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
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
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
fyrabanks
Same. I built my first wheel according to his specs. His whole website is so helpful and thoughtfully written. RIP.
frikk
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.
dlenski
> 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...
keithjl
I caught on near the tail end of the fixie craze, and my first build was a classic ten speed conversion with diagonal dropouts.
Imagine my heartbreak when I didn't tighten the lockring enough and stripped the threads the first time I tried to skid stop :')
rsingel
R.I.P. Sheldon
jmclnx
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
And the shop itself closed in 2021 after being open for nearly 70 years. I purchased my Brompton there.
jmclnx
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
His wife was a professor at the Northeastern computer science department when I went there. A wonderful teacher.
kccqzy
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
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.)
bsimpson
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.
xmddmx
> 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?
hinkley
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.
Metacelsus
MS sucks. We need to end Epstein-Barr virus!
hackingonempty
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.
ak217
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.
marttt
+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
kyorochan
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
Their bike repair manual is awesome as well !
jacquesm
I wished more of the web was like this.
if you like this you may also like:
II2II
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
> 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
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.
czscout
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.
foco_tubi
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.
sloosh
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
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.
luqtas
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
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
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
Problem with tandems is the person in back (who doesn't steer) ends up doing way more of the work
recursive
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.
carabiner
Random tidbit, his daughter is a researcher/mathematician at OpenAI.
hackingonempty
...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.)
foco_tubi
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!
dan-bailey
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!
mikestew
Allez! Allez! Bonne chance pour demain!
cos2pi
Allez!
markstos
Good luck!
steve_adams_86
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.
bobchadwick
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...
djmips
Let's hear it for Harriet! Keeping the website going. I wonder if it has a long term plan?
rindalir
I TA’ed for Harriet, she’s awesome!
cos2pi
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/
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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.