Originally Posted by
Mr IGH
I presented my questions about his claims to him in person, at the Palo Alto Bike Shop in the fall of 1986. I had read his book and asked/challenged him about "standing on a spoke" claim and the "DB is gooder" claim. He was kinda speechless, I guess he wasn't used to defending his claims. To this day, he's never given any engineering explanation beyond what's in the book. I've since met a fellow rider/engineer and he had the same result using finite analysis, Josbt got all pissed at him too. Never defended his claims, just attacked him (just as he did to me in '86).
Interesting. My first doubts about his objectivity and committment to reason arose from the way he attacked people questioning him in some of the old mailing list threads. I wonder if you were among them? Probably, huh?!
Anyway, I wrote him off as a pseudo-scientific retrogrouch blowhard long ago...probably after reading my second issue of Bicycle Quarterly!