Jobst Brandt (January 14, 1935 – May 5, 2015) was an American mechanical engineer, inventor, bicycle enthusiast, educator, and author.

Early life

Brandt was born in New York City, where his father, the German-born agricultural economist

Karl Brandt Karl Brandt (8 January 1904 – 2 June 1948) was a German physician and ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) officer in Nazi Germany. Trained in surgery, Brandt joined the Nazi Party in 1932 and became Adolf Hitler's escort doctor in August 1934. A member of ...

, was a professor at the New School for Social Research. The family moved to

Palo Alto Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. The city was estab ...

in 1938. Jobst Brandt studied mechanical engineering at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

, graduating in 1958. After two years of military service in the US Army Corps of Engineers, stationed near Frankfurt, Germany, he found employment at

Porsche Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG, usually shortened to Porsche (; see #Pronunciation, below), is a German automobile manufacturer specializing in high-performance sports cars, SUVs and sedans, headquartered in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany ...

. His subsequent employers included Hewlett Packard,

SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, originally named the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, is a United States Department of Energy National Laboratory operated by Stanford University under the programmatic direction of the U.S. Departme ...

, and Avocet, a bicycle accessories brand. At Avocet, he was involved in the development of a

cyclocomputer A cyclocomputer, cycle computer, cycling computer or cyclometer is a device mounted on a bicycle that calculates and displays trip information, similar to the instruments in the dashboard of a car. The computer with display, or ''head unit'', ...

(patent 6,134,508), touring shoes (patent 4,547,983), and a high-performance bicycle tire, and published ''

The Bicycle Wheel ''The Bicycle Wheel'' is a treatise on wheelbuilding by Jobst Brandt. Overview ''The Bicycle Wheel'' is an educational book that explains the structural theory of a wire wheel Wire wheels, wire-spoked wheels, tension-spoked wheels, or "suspe ...

'', a unique treatise on

wheelbuilding Wheelbuilding is the process of assembling wire wheels (generally a bicycle wheel, but including wheelchairs, and some cars). The components of a wire wheel are the rim, spokes, nipples, and hub. Goals The wheelwright must ensure that the ...

which became a best-seller.

Legacy

From the late 1980s until the early/mid 2000s, the era of the

Usenet newsgroup A Usenet newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from users in different locations using the Internet. They are discussion groups and are not devoted to publishing news. Newsgroups are technically distinct ...

, Jobst Brandt was a prolific contributor to rec.bicycles.tech and other public forums. His authoritative explanations and incisive, sometimes tart opinions on bicycle technology, as well as the detailed descriptions of his inspiring bike holidays in the Alps and epic one-day rides in the

Santa Cruz Mountains The Santa Cruz Mountains, part of the Pacific Coast Ranges, are a mountain range in central and Northern California, United States. They form a ridge down the San Francisco Peninsula, south of San Francisco. They separate the Pacific Ocean from ...

,Coast Range Slide Show
/ref> brought him a wide readership among avid bicyclists well beyond the Bay Area, in the nascent online community.

References

External links

* ttp://www.google.com.ar/patents/US5058427 Accumulating altimeter with ascent/descent accumulation thresholds, US patent # 5058427 Abr>Cycling Legend Jobst Brandt Passes Away, by Matt Phillips, Bicycling magazineTom Ritchey: A Tribute to Jobst, Ritchey Design Current News, Friday, May 22nd, 2015Frequently Asked Questions about Bicycles and Bicycling
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brandt, Jobst Male touring cyclists American male cyclists People from Palo Alto, California 2015 deaths Writers from New York City Stanford University alumni American mechanical engineers Engineers from California 20th-century American inventors 1935 births Engineers from New York City Cycling writers