About the Author
My name is Tony Castelletto and I've been riding for more than twenty years now. The fact that I've been doing anything for more than twenty years still amazes me. The idea that a bike could take you places first came to me in high school when I was too poor to afford a car. This is a serious liability in Los Angeles where I'm from originally. Instead, I rode my old Schwinn Beach cruiser everywhere; school, work, the beach, you name it. In college, I took up mountain biking and bicycle touring. I used my old Specialized Hardrock for both purposes. I also used it as my primary means of transportation well into my first pass at graduate school.
Living and working in Ann Arbor, I began to put a name to my philosophy of living, dubbing it The Local Lifestyle. I'd actually been living the lifestyle for many years, but had not really examined it. Since the late 1980s, I have commuted to work by bike in Olympia WA, Seattle, Los Angeles, Ann Arbor MI and Philadelphia.
I developed this site from an essay I did on a blog several years ago. A good friend of mine asked for advice on how to get started cycling so I wrote an essay that was part primer, part social commentary and part political screed. The essay was well received by those who read it, and, ever since, I've wanted to develop a web site that provides novice riders with all the information they'd need to get started. This web site is the that desire made manifest. For the most part, all the ideas and advice are original and based on my personal experiences as a commuter and recreational cyclist. Some of these ideas I came up with on my own, some I picked up fron crusty old veteran cyclists in Washington and Michigan. Quite a lot of my ideas, insights and opinions developed out of the folklore passed down to me by the crowd of hippie mountain bikers who called The Evergreen State College home. While studying there, I practically lived in the campus bike shop where I constantly tinkered with my first mountain bike, upgrading components, adjusing settings and straightening my frame after my latest trail mishap.
For those who are curious, I currently ride a Novara Element cyclocross bike and think very highly of it. In the past I have ridden a Cannondale M-800 Beast of the East, a Cannondale R-800 and Specialized Hardrock. My Cannondales proved to be extremely rugged and durable. I even used the road racer as a touring and commuting bike complete with jury rigged rack and custom built semi touring wheels. I don't recommend doing this. Just get a touring bike.
By education, I'm a Physicist. I worked for a brief time as an Engineering Research Assistant at the University of Michigan Space Physics Lab. There I did all manner of scientific programming, built instruments and worked in a ground control center. Then the Cold War ended with the fall of the Soviet Union and the rebirth of Russia. Without defense and ideological rivalry to spur funding in Space Science, my position evaporated. Like a great many out of work Physicists, I migrated over to the Internet and have been steadily climbing the OSI layers until I now work with people rather than machines. I currently work at the Linguistic Data Consortium where I oversee the organization's publication efforts.
Education
| Institution | Major | Dates | Degree |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Evergreen College | Physics/Chemistry | 1987-1991 | Bachelor of Science |
| University of Michigan | Space Physics | 1991-1992 | none |
| Drexel University | Library/Information Science | 2005-2008 | Master of Science |