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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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/
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.
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.
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
...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.)
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.
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/
Same. I built my first wheel according to his specs. His whole website is so helpful and thoughtfully written. RIP.
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.
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.
I wished more of the web was like this.
if you like this you may also like:
https://outspokencyclist.com/tag/harriet-fell/
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
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.
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.
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
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!
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.
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/
RIP to this legendary hacker.
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.
I'm going to repeat this verbatim in my next technical interview. I still have nightmares about an old peugeot px10
Thank you for sharing. This is wholesome as f*ck.
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
Still awesome.
And the web design!
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
Random tidbit, his daughter is a researcher/mathematician at OpenAI.
...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/
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...
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!
Allez!
Good luck!