End of an era; RIP Jobst Brandt

Very sad news indeed, hearing of Jobst’s passing. Jobst was something of an institution. I was a source of frustration for him, because he figured I was smart enough and had been around him enough to agree with him on everything, and that surely wasn’t the case! He would admonish people on the strangest of things, including STI shifting. He didn’t think people needed to shift all that often. Not sure what the downside to shifting too often is; maybe all that shifting effort contributed to global warming?

Most of all I remember 100+ mile rides, “Jobst Rides”, through the Santa Cruz mountains. I was 15 at the time, skinny super-climber type, like a number of other young guys on his rides, and sure, we’d get to the top of the climbs ahead of him, but he was a diesel, he just never slowed down, and mile 95 we’d be heading home on Foothill, into a headwind, all of us strung out behind him, trying to hang onto his wheel. Amazing. We also took our road bikes places where some mountain bikers might fear to tread. It was the early-70s, so no such thing as a mountain bike, just goat paths in the mountains that must be ridden!

Jobst knew all the “safe” places to get water, including this little pipe that dribbled out of the hillside on Mountain Charlie Road. In the distance you could see a house, and when the water slowed to a trickle we’d yell “FLUSH!”

He was also the last person to regularly call me “Jake”, my nickname from the way-back days. I’d be told there was some older cantankerous guy at the shop looking for “Jake”, to the puzzlement of my employees. I always knew who that was.

Jobst gave me the key to the Santa Cruz Mountains. Doing my best to pass that on to my son. RIP old friend.






3 thoughts on “End of an era; RIP Jobst Brandt

  1. Wow, cool remembrances! I didn’t know of your connection. I didn’t know him, but just recently read The Bicycle Wheel. Sounds like he was quite an interesting guy.

  2. Sad news!

    I used to read his ride reports and admire his adventurousness.

    The Bay Area bike scene has lost a legend.

  3. Sad news, indeed.

    For me, he was the undisputable authority regarding bike tech, the only guy that could satisfy my need for going scientifically deep into bike tech issues. As a 1965-born in Yugoslavia, as a kid passionate over bike tech I just had to put up with just about everybody ridiculing me for being an overthinking nerd, although in the end they would be more than satisfied with my solutions for their bike problems in a country and an era where spare parts were not of the quality I craved. It was only with the rise of the Internet that I could capitalize on my English language proficiency to seek the bike tech world I wanted to be a part of. I was already grown up then, and being also an engineer could grasp Jobst’s concepts and ideas, yet not always his attitudes. He was more than a source. He was a guru, an idol. The most valuable information I have ever read were written either by him or the (sadly also late) Sheldon Brown

    I’m deeply moved. He will be missed.
    Marko Stanojevic

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