dashdotrobot

Hey folks,

My name is Matt and I'm a cyclist and bike geek living in Chicago. I am heavily involved in a wonderful little non-profit community bike shop called The Recyclery. A few years ago I picked up a copy of Jobst Brandt's book The Bicycle Wheel and got interested in wheels and wheelbuilding. I got so interested I made it the subject of my PhD thesis in Mechanical Engineering! I developed a theoretical framework for stress analysis of the wheel, and specifically studied the "taco-ing" problem.

I just did a solo bike tour from Chicago to Minneapolis and definitely caught the touring bug. I ride a Velo Orange Campeur (with a custom wheelset, of course) and a Dahon folding bike around town.

I teach bike maintenance classes at The Recyclery and I've attended Bike!Bike! a few times (conference for non-profit bike shops), but otherwise I haven't spent much time connecting with other bike enthusiasts online. I'm hoping to connect with the BikeForums community!