Jan Heine on wheel building

On Tue, 14 Mar 2017 09:52:52 -0700 (PDT), Doug Landau
wrote:
On Tuesday, March 14, 2017 at 7:51:48 AM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
https://janheine.wordpress.com

Today's blog post is about building strong wheels.

That guy is just such a doof it's impossible to take him seriously
even when what he's saying is not incorrect.

Jan's first language is German, which influences how he writes. He's
prone to sounding dogmatic even when he's accommodating other
viewpoints. He seems genuinely interested in being correct in his
information, although he has tended to iterate his way there. Like
Grant Petersen and Jobst, he seems to have a somewhat outsized influence
given his niche market share. Like those two, his passion for and
belief in what he's doing seem to make a difference. But he's nowhere
near as "encycleopedic" as Jobst or Sheldon Brown, and he's a lot more
specifically focused than Grant.

His magazine is beautifully produced and his tires have been very
favorably viewed by all the people I know who have used them. I can't
bring myself to spend $70 on a bike tire. I did use his braze-ons and
straddle wire hangers for Mafac centerpulls when I had a custom bike
built; very well made products. His Rene Herse cranks look beautiful,
too. His history of Rene Herse is quite the tome.

Apparently he's also got a doctorate in geology. And more to the point,
perhaps, is that he has been able to turn his passion into making a
living. Many of us never do that. On the flip side I do find his
writing style often irritating and I could go a long while without
reading the word "optimized" as it relates to bike designs. He does
finally seem to be moving a bit past 1950s French constructeur bikes as
the ultimate pinnacle of bicycle design. That's good.