This will not parse for most of you, but Sheldon Brown of Harris Cyclery passed away yesterday of a heart attack. He had been diagnosed with MS in August 07, though i hadn’t read anything about that at the time.

Sheldon was a sales guy at Harris, a community ride organizer, a local fixture in the cycling community, and internationally known for writing some of the most comprehensive, killer FAQs for bike repair and assembly ever. I’ve read the majority of them at least once, and they are amazing. He noted the nuances between manufacturers over the years of the same part’s design changes, how they differed, how to accommodate them. He described in detail all the factors going into the kinds of fixie conversion projects Lung and i have been doing, and he even wrote the best FAQ on how to effing RIDE a fixed gear, or really any bike, hands down. He was an absolute fount of knowledge, not only the technical detail, but the good common sense stuff, the experience-based recommendations that were never biased by manufacturer or riding style, and above all, he wrote about, and lived, the kind of sustainable biking lifestyle that I really enjoy seeing: non-trendy, not culty, beer drinking, funky bike having, home-modding, goofy helmeting, good fun riding. No image or style or attitude. I’m not really that rider, but it’s the sort of thing I LOVE about SF bike culture as a whole, when all the subsets and various groups glom together and become a free, diverse, fun-loving community, come Critical Mass each month.

I’m saddened to know of his passing, to say the least. But he is remembered! Let’s honor him, those with bikes, by riding today. Or this week. Or, for you in Frozen Tundra country, late spring!

http://sheldonbrown.com/harris/index.html

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