Brandt was born in New York City, where his father, the German-born agricultural economist Karl Brandt, was a professor at the New School for Social Research.[1][2] The family moved to Palo Alto in 1938. Jobst Brandt studied mechanical engineering at Stanford University, graduating in 1958.[3] After two years of military service in the US Army Corps of Engineers, stationed near Frankfurt, Germany, he found employment at Porsche.[4] His subsequent employers included Hewlett Packard, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, and Avocet, a bicycle accessories brand.[5] At Avocet, he was involved in the development of a cyclocomputer (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 which became a best-seller.
From the late 1980s until the early/mid 2000s, the era of the Usenet newsgroup, Jobst Brandt was a prolific contributor to rec.bicycles.tech and other public forums.[6][7] 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[8] and epic one-day rides in the Santa Cruz Mountains,[9] brought him a wide readership among avid bicyclists well beyond the Bay Area, in the nascent online community.
