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 language, Spanish for ) is a charter city in northwestern Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. Th ...

in 1938. Jobst Brandt studied mechanical engineering at

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

, 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 below), is a German automobile manufacturer specializing in luxury, high-performance sports cars, SUVs and sedans, headquartered in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Th ...

. His subsequent employers included

Hewlett Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company. It was founded by Bill Hewlett and David Packard in 1939 in a one-car garage in Palo Alto, Californi ...

SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, originally named the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, is a Federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center in Menlo Park, California, Menlo Park, Ca ...

, 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'', a unique treatise on

wheelbuilding Wheelbuilding is the process of assembling wire wheels (generally a bicycle wheel, but including wheelchairs, and some automobile, cars and motorcycles). The components of a wire wheel are the Rim_(wheel), rim, spokes, spoke nipple, nipples, and ...

, 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 not only discussion groups or conversations, but also a repository to publish articles, start ...

, 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 ( Mutsun Ohlone: Mak-sah-re-jah, "Sharp Ridged Mountain of the Eagle" or "People of the Eagle Mountain") are a mountain range in central and Northern California, United States, constituting a part of the Pacific Coast R ...

,Coast Range Slide Show
/ref> brought him a wide readership among avid bicyclists well beyond the

Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay, and anchored by the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose. The Association of Bay Area Governments ...

, in the nascent online community.

References

External links

The Bicycle Wheel book by Jobst Brandt, published by Avocet
* 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 20th-century American sportsmen