The Ongoing Destruction of the Sheldon Brown Repository
03-10-19, 01:49 PM
#26
Old fart
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I never met Sheldon in person; my only interactions with him were via email and usenet, but I never got the impression that he intended the web site to be a shrine to his expertise and memory. The changes over the years serve to keep it relevant, IMO.
I don’t apologize for “droning,” if that’s what you want to call it, about safety. The best way to improve cycling is to lower the rate of injuries and deaths. I suggest y’all check out the CyclingSavvy web site, which is upbeat and pleasant, and full of good information.
I've not heard of "CyclingSavvy;" I'll have to check it out. Thanks!
03-10-19, 03:05 PM
#27
Tragically Ignorant
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Hi all,
I’m belatedly seeing this. I’m John Schubert, one of the people mentioned in this discussion. I can offer some clarifying facts. ;-)
(1) Sheldon Brown was a good friend. I was his editor for articles he published at Bicycing Magazine. When Sheldon died, his widow Harriet Fell (also a good friend of mine in real life) took over the site.
(2) Harriet enlisted John Allen to update it and keep the information current. They have added a lot of content, and addressed many issues with the underlying HTML.
(3) Some have criticized me because my article “Why reflectors don’t work” appears on the web site. Around 15 or 20 years ago, Sheldon asked me for permission to run that article after it first appeared in another publication. So — that was his decision. I’m glad it remains available, since it’s the only way I know of, to explain to someone how and why reflectors perform, and how they can fail to perform.
(4) I don’t remember having any other of my own material on the web site. If there’s something I have up there and have forgotten about, it would be under Harriet’s direction.
(5) I stopped using the term “vehicular cycling” a dozen years ago, and urge y’all to do likewise. We talk about “bicycle driver behavior,” which has evolved due to key scientific findings, differs from the early notion of vehicular cycling in many helpful and delightful ways. Whatever one calls it, Sheldon was an ardent supporter of it (as is Harriet). It was not the focus of the web site, of course.
(6) I don’t apologize for “droning,” if that’s what you want to call it, about safety. The best way to improve cycling is to lower the rate of injuries and deaths. I suggest y’all check out the CyclingSavvy web site, which is upbeat and pleasant, and full of good information.
I’m belatedly seeing this. I’m John Schubert, one of the people mentioned in this discussion. I can offer some clarifying facts. ;-)
(1) Sheldon Brown was a good friend. I was his editor for articles he published at Bicycing Magazine. When Sheldon died, his widow Harriet Fell (also a good friend of mine in real life) took over the site.
(2) Harriet enlisted John Allen to update it and keep the information current. They have added a lot of content, and addressed many issues with the underlying HTML.
(3) Some have criticized me because my article “Why reflectors don’t work” appears on the web site. Around 15 or 20 years ago, Sheldon asked me for permission to run that article after it first appeared in another publication. So — that was his decision. I’m glad it remains available, since it’s the only way I know of, to explain to someone how and why reflectors perform, and how they can fail to perform.
(4) I don’t remember having any other of my own material on the web site. If there’s something I have up there and have forgotten about, it would be under Harriet’s direction.
(5) I stopped using the term “vehicular cycling” a dozen years ago, and urge y’all to do likewise. We talk about “bicycle driver behavior,” which has evolved due to key scientific findings, differs from the early notion of vehicular cycling in many helpful and delightful ways. Whatever one calls it, Sheldon was an ardent supporter of it (as is Harriet). It was not the focus of the web site, of course.
(6) I don’t apologize for “droning,” if that’s what you want to call it, about safety. The best way to improve cycling is to lower the rate of injuries and deaths. I suggest y’all check out the CyclingSavvy web site, which is upbeat and pleasant, and full of good information.
Really good response, I will check out the web site.
03-10-19, 08:04 PM
#28
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Excerpt from Moby Dick
"The White Whale swam before him as the monomaniac incarnation of all those malicious agencies which some deep men feel eating them. All that maddens and torments, all that stirs up the lees of things, all the subtle demonisms of life and evil were personified, to crazy Ahab, in Moby Dick. Forced to return home, Ahab and anguish lay stretched in delirium together in one hammock, rounding the howling Cape in the winter. On the homeward voyage in a strait-jacket, the final MONOMANIA seized his torn body and gashed SOUL."
Note:
I mean c'mon, it was just a white whale!
ArmChairRidder
"the calculating people of that prudent isle" decided "he was all the better qualified for a pursuit so full of rage as the bloody hunt of whales."
Note:
Okay, I'm calling this, Ahab was a lunatic.
I had to edit 3 links in my address bar before it would show the pages I clicked on in Sheldon Brown's website.
Just not the same smooth running website it was before.
P.S.
"the calculating people of that prudent isle"
Note:
I'm pretty sure they didn't have electronic calculators back in those days.
ArmChairRider
P.S.
"The White Whale swam before him as the monomaniac incarnation of all those malicious agencies which some deep men feel eating them. All that maddens and torments, all that stirs up the lees of things, all the subtle demonisms of life and evil were personified, to crazy Ahab, in Moby Dick. Forced to return home, Ahab and anguish lay stretched in delirium together in one hammock, rounding the howling Cape in the winter. On the homeward voyage in a strait-jacket, the final MONOMANIA seized his torn body and gashed SOUL."
Note:
I mean c'mon, it was just a white whale!
ArmChairRidder
"the calculating people of that prudent isle" decided "he was all the better qualified for a pursuit so full of rage as the bloody hunt of whales."
Note:
Okay, I'm calling this, Ahab was a lunatic.
I had to edit 3 links in my address bar before it would show the pages I clicked on in Sheldon Brown's website.
Just not the same smooth running website it was before.
P.S.
"the calculating people of that prudent isle"
Note:
I'm pretty sure they didn't have electronic calculators back in those days.
ArmChairRider
P.S.
Last edited by ArmChairRider; 03-10-19 at 08:32 PM.
03-17-19, 09:19 PM
#29
Newbie
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Hello Armchairrider!
Please send your specific problems to John S. Allen at <jsallen@bikexprt.com>
The web site has several thousand pages, and John wants them all to work perfectly. He needs your help to make that happen.
John Schubert
Please send your specific problems to John S. Allen at <jsallen@bikexprt.com>
The web site has several thousand pages, and John wants them all to work perfectly. He needs your help to make that happen.
John Schubert
