Sheldon Brown and the givers and takers
Mon, June 14, 2021 
The world is made up of givers and takers, not everyone of course, and some not all the time.
If someone gets recognized as a giver, the takers will call on that same person time and time again to give, give, give.
I have become reluctant to give to charities, because I have learned that if I give to one charity, my name address and phone number is sold to other charities, and I am called upon to donate over and over.
Givers don’t just give money, some share knowledge they have for the benefit of others. One such man was Sheldon Brown, a bike mechanic and somewhat eccentric character. (Picture above.) He had a vast knowledge of bicycle specifications. He shared these on his website, where anyone could go for free and look up standard thread specs, for different countries, ball-bearing sizes, and spoke lengths, etc., etc. Information necessary if you happen to be restoring an old bicycle.
When Sheldon Brown passed away in 2008 way too early at 63 years of age, the bike shop where he worked sponsored and maintained the website. When I read an article stating that the bike shop hosting Sheldon’s website was closing their doors and the was concern about the future of the site. I thought this was information I should share with others on the Dave Moulton Bike Facebook Group.
Now my timing was not good, it was Saturday evening, my wife was preparing the evening meal, and I needed to shut down the computer, go wash up so we could eat. The first comment back was, “You do it Dave, you would be the ideal person for the job.”
No.... That was not what I was thinking at all, and I wrote back. “I can’t do it, I am 85 years old for Cri-sake and have enough on my plate with my own blog, and bike registry.”
Then someone asks, “Where can we donate money?” I don’t know, why should it be the one to find out? I do a quick Google search; find a Sheldon Brown Facebook page and I post there asking for info on how we can donate to preserve the website.
Meanwhile, my wife is calling me to come eat, as I post the link to the Sheldon Brown FB page. Now I have a response back from the first poster. “85 is no age at all. My mother is 87 and she’s a powerhouse.” I responded to that with a post that basically said, “Fuck you.” When someone else pointed out that the FB page I had linked to was for a young girl named Sheldon Brown. Not Sheldon Brown Bicycle Guru.
Now as well as being thoroughly pissed off, I am embarrassed that In my haste I had made such a stupid mistake. I went back to the FB page and deleted my post there. Then with my wife still calling me to come and eat, I said, “Fuck it, I’m done.” And deleted the whole original post on the Dave Moulton Bike page. Shut down and went to eat. It did not ruin my whole evening, but did leave me to wonder, “Why do I even bother?”
I think it is safe to say, “I am a giver.” I have left a legacy of several thousand bikes, that will still be here long after I’m gone. These bikes will continue to be bought and sold, collected, ridden, and enjoyed for many years to come.
This leaves me with a warm, fuzzy feeling, and little else. A feeling of pride, but not so proud that I am going to fall for a line like, “You do it Dave, you would be ideal for the job.” Then when that failed, he came back with, “85 is nothing, my mother is a powerhouse at 87.” This is how people try to manipulate givers, flattery first, and if that does not work, try shaming them.
It has been a while since I had a good old rant, feels good to sometimes get it out. It would be a pity if Sheldon Brown’s site were to disappear, but I doubt that will happen. Someone with a giving nature will donate time and money to keep it up and running. But it ain’t me, I have enough on my plate.
I have simply drawn attention to the issue, now I am done.
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Reader Comments (3)
Dear Dave,
You are true with both your willingness to help and experiencing the way others try to exploit it.
In relation to this site and its information, you (we all) can rely on the internet archive, which has frequent copies of many, many sites. For instance, there is an almost up-to-date copy of this in [1].
However, for ensuring the information is well managed, the license is very important. Sadly, I read "Copyright & copy; 2005 to 2021 E. David Moulton. [Dave Moulton] All rights reserved." in the foot of the site and all pages. This limits (forbids) the reproduction of the text, so it will not favor any reuse or future maintenance. I recommend you to choose another license, such as "Creative Commons" [2]. It is widely used in Wikipedia so, for instance, your articles can be hosted on Wikimedia sites, including Wikipedia itself. Of course it is not the only "open" and/or "artistic" license for permissively distributing knowledge, but, IIRC, it is the most well-known, easy to use, and has good reputation. I insist on this because the license is crucial for open knowledge to evolve, as it was, for example, with Wikipedia and many other open-source and permissive software licenses.
Regards,
Pedro
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20210609082010/http://davesbikeblog.squarespace.com/
[2] https://creativecommons.org/
Pedro,
This is exactly the kind of useful information I need,
Thank you,
Dave
"...the man who can be flattered isn't a man at all, he's a dog." -Black Easter, by James Blish
One hundred years earlier, Joseph Addison said:
“…what is still worse, the most object flatterers degenerate into the greatest tyrants.”