Sheldon Brown, 1944-2008

On Feb 7, 4:18 am, wrote:
Like everyone else, I have found Sheldon's website very helpful over
the years. Who wouldn't have? He's got just about everything you
could ever ask about bicycles, and more, on there.

While I don't wish to derogate in the slightest from everything that
Sheldon did for the cycling community during his lifetime, and while
of course I recognize that one should not criticize the departed, may
I be permitted to say that I would have enjoyed him and his site a lot
more if he hadn't tried to push his personal philosophies and his left-
wing politics so hard. I don't see the need to inject politics into
cycling. I found it gratuitous, presumptuous, and typical of the
radical left, which will never admit that reasonable people can
disagree about politics.

Get lost dude!

Tom Kunich wrote:
"(PeteCresswell)" wrote in message
...

In Sheldon's case, the bell really does toll for us all.

Geez Pete, how many of the ******s here would have read Hemingway?

I thought it was Donne

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
***
(Appropriate though)

On Wed, 06 Feb 2008 03:18:22 GMT, Ryan Cousineau
wrote:

If one wishes to consume a mixed drink in his honor, I can only
recommend the Radler ("rider," idiomatically a cyclist, in German) which

'Rider' would be "Reiter" or "Ritter" in German (for the latter aka,
'knight'), "Radler" is built up from -ler, meaning 'someone who uses' and
"Rad", which is short for "Fahrrad" (going-wheel) = 'bicycle'. "Rad" for
bicycle is slightly more idiomatic but widely used. In other words, it's a
cyclist, but not through the etymology you present.

As for the topic at hand.. I'll miss Sheldon. Much. But I don't think he'd
begrudge me hoisting a glass of *my* favorite tipple rather than his,
though, so tonight I'll drink some Islay single malt in his honour.

Jasper

On Feb 7, 7:40*am, " wrote:
On Feb 7, 4:18 am, wrote:

Like everyone else, I have found Sheldon's website very helpful over
the years. *Who wouldn't have? *He's got just about everything you
could ever ask about bicycles, and more, on there.

While I don't wish to derogate in the slightest from everything that
Sheldon did for the cycling community during his lifetime, and while
of course I recognize that one should not criticize the departed, may
I be permitted to say that I would have enjoyed him and his site a lot
more if he hadn't tried to push his personal philosophies and his left-
wing politics so hard. *I don't see the need to inject politics into
cycling. *I found it gratuitous, presumptuous, and typical of the
radical left, which will never admit that reasonable people can
disagree about politics.

Get lost dude!

The "andresmuro" vision of rec.bicycles.* :

http://preview.tinyurl.com/3ddpun

http://tinyurl.com/3ddpun

Thy rod and thy staff...... :-(

John Forrest Tomlinson wrote:
Some wrote about someone else "Face it, Tom, you're a self-absorbed
prick "

Tom's behaviour started to make more "sense" to me when I began
considering him mentally ill.

The new Turing Test.

Bob Schwartz

"Ozark Bicycle" wrote in message
...

The "andresmuro" vision of rec.bicycles.* :
http://tinyurl.com/3ddpun

Strangely enough just the sort of thing that Sheldon abhorred as well.

On Feb 7, 5:18*am, wrote:
Like everyone else, I have found Sheldon's website very helpful over
the years. *Who wouldn't have? *He's got just about everything you
could ever ask about bicycles, and more, on there.

While I don't wish to derogate in the slightest from everything that
Sheldon did for the cycling community during his lifetime, and while
of course I recognize that one should not criticize the departed, may
I be permitted to say that I would have enjoyed him and his site a lot
more if he hadn't tried to push his personal philosophies and his left-
wing politics so hard. *I don't see the need to inject politics into
cycling. *I found it gratuitous, presumptuous, and typical of the
radical left, which will never admit that reasonable people can
disagree about politics.

1) If you didn't like the politics, you should have gone somewhere
else for your free help.

2) The "politics" are part of the personality. When was the last time
you saw a generous "conservative"-- not including donations that are
photo-op tax writeoffs?

3) Sheldon Brown, "radical left"? Bull****

4) Since when are the Followers of Limbaugh "reasonable"????

5) Go soak your head. Really. --D-y

On Feb 4, 1:43 pm, Robert Chung wrote:
http://sheldonbrown.com/harris/

RIP.

What they said.



How many times did I look for information and wind up at his site,
only to find much more.

On Feb 6, 9:27 pm, Jay Beattie wrote:
By the way, it is good to see some of the old
timers dropping by and giving their condolences. I wonder if Hickey
has heard the news.

When I first got involved in this group twelve or thirteen years ago,
Sheldon was among a small core of contributors who made it both
informative and civil. It was a nice foil to RBR -- with very little
name calling apart from the once a year anti-helmet thread by
JPoulos. But even the helmet threads were full of real content --
like medical journal cites and detailed discussions of the
epidemiology. It was not all sweetness and light back then, but
nothing like the sometimes psychotic, personal jihads we see these
day. Sheldon never took part in that. -- Jay Beattie.

Amen, and amen.

My first post to RBT was on my 38th birthday. I'm very close to 50
now. I learned a lot about how to communicate with people over the
Internet from Sheldon. He led by example, of course, rather than by
instruction or correction.

What I read in this thread explains why I stopped participating in RBT
some 8 years ago. The example it provides is the opposite of what
Sheldon provided.

I didn't agree with a lot of Sheldon's non-bicycle views, but that
didn't matter. He expressed them eloquently and with great civility,
and that forced me to consider my own views carefully before
continuing to disagree with him. My disagreements with him led to
learning and respect, rather than bitterness and entrenchment.

I once was chatting with Sheldon at Harris when I visited on a
business trip to Boston, and I congratulated him on a recent technical
argument in which he had engaged Jobst sufficiently to extract an
acknowledgment. At that time, I still (foolishly) looked on arguments
with Jobst as a sport for the courageous few, and awarded points to
those (few) who did so successfully. Sheldon corrected me by saying,
"It was a disappointment for me. I pride myself on my ability to
explain things clearly, and I knew I had missed that mark when Jobst
didn't understand what I had said." (The subject of that debate was
the then-new parallelogram design of the Shimano mountain-bike brakes
from so long ago that I don't even remember the product name any more.
The long endurance of that exchange in my memory indicates the
importance I give it.)

When I read Jobst's response to Tom, I read not an attack on Tom but
the typical curmudgeonly compliment of Sheldon, to wit: If you are
surprised by the breadth of the reaction to the loss of Sheldon, then
maybe you didn't know him as well as you thought you did. Jobst talked
that way a dozen years ago. Expecting him to change is very, well, un-
Sheldonlike. The bitterness that followed in this thread was even
moreso.

Rick "also wondering if Mark Hickey has gotten the news" Denney

On Wed, 6 Feb 2008 21:34:01 -0800 in rec.bicycles.misc, "Tom
Kunich" cyclintom@yahoo. com wrote:

Nice entry into a string about Sheldon Brown. Any normal person would have
started a new string to insult me. But then I suppose your overwhelming
piety would prevent that.

tom, most of us have fred killfiled for a reason. don't feed the
troll.