I don't know how many of you remember Jobst Brandt. Probably no one under 70. Jobst was a mechanical engineer who was apparently very good. He moved to the US from Germany and worked in the Silicon Valley area which is the South San Francisco Bay Area. Or at least that is what I seem to remember. I don't remember him having any accent but I do remember he worked for a time at Porche. Most of the time he worked for H-P I think.
He was an active bicyclist on an old steel bike with downtube shifters and I think a 5 speed freewheel though he might have changed over to a 6 speed freewheel as an accession to modern bicycles. His cranks were the old Campy stuff with 52/48 rings
http://pardo.net/bike/pic/jobst/Jobst_Brandt_on_Filbert_Street_SF.jpg
Close examination of the sidewalk reveals steps. I tried this and made it about halfway before I had to get off and push. And I was in a 42-26.
He was an absolute monster on the climbs using old professional type gearing. He would climb some of our local 10%+ climbs in a 48-19 gear. Well, I rode with him on several rides but finally gave up because if you can even turn a gear like that you are faster than most people. He was 2" taller than me and he rode a bike 2" taller than I did. And he would take the Jobst Ride over areas he was really familiar with so he could shoot off of the road onto slippery gravel roads without a thought to those following who luckily were generally smart enough to know not to follow Jobst on this sort of terrain at the speed he was going.
But we retained intermittent contact on Sheldon Brown's bicycle groups and our relationship got perhaps less friendly than it could have been. Most of this was due to the fact that everyone would turn to him for advice and he would give them this horrible advice such as "If you can't climb in a 48-19 you might as well not climb at all. Maybe bicycling isn't for you."
As a mechanical engineer making some of the most modern designs he would knock every single improvement especially such things as Brifters. If you couldn't bend over and use friction shifter on the downtube you were worthless.
All of the people I rode with from the time I restarted riding always would bend over backwards to help any new cyclists. I knew every spot on Palomares where you could pull off the road after doing a short stint of 12%. So the sort of discouragement Jobst handed out as a matter of course began to grate on me.
Now again, this was normally on the Shelton Brown's website. Jobst and Sheldon have both died but Shelton was such a great activist that if you want most information on bicycles even down to clearances and different thread sizes etc. you can still get it off of Sheldon's website. Harris Cyclery. https://sheldonbrown.com/harris/index.html
About the only thing left of Jobst is his book, "The Bicycle Wheel" which I read before starting to build wheels. It must have stuck though. Several years ago as I was just recovering from my concussion I broke a rim on a rear wheel. I had another rim like it on an extra front wheel. I removed the rims and re-spoked it onto the broken back wheel in less than an hour. And these were the really thin and bending wheels with 32 spokes. Equalizing all of the spoke tensions were absolutely necessary to achieve success. Never had to straighten that wheel.
Jobst died in 2015 at the approximate age of 80. Sheldon Brown died in 2008 at about the age of 64.
I think we should remember these people because they were a large part of those who caused bicycling to increase in the USA. I had my own personal heroes who have since died as well and none of them from injuries incurred from racer-like riding techniques as apparently happened to Jobst. But when the occasion warrants I can ride pretty good and while doing it I remember Jobst and Sheldon.
