Meet Jim Langley Jim Langley has a remarkable cycling resume and we're stoked that RoadBikeRider.com is part of it. Jim worked with us from December 2003 to March '05, dropped back to occasional contributions, then returned as our regular technical writer in April 2009. Jim lives in Santa Cruz, California, with his wife Deb. They have 2 grown daughters. Proving that he has athletic skills way beyond pedaling and wrenching, Jim also plays tournament-level table tennis. Jim's first round of contributions to RBR is archived on the Premium Site, where he serves as moderator of the technical topics in the Roadie Rap forum. You'll also find his expertise in Jim's Tech Talk in each issue of the RBR newsletter. In addition, Jim is author of the innovative eBook that works like a website, Your Home Bicycle Workshop. Here's his brief autobiography. WITH APOLOGIES TO Saturday Night Live, you could say that bicycles have been bery, bery good to me. Probably like most of you, I fell for cycling as a kid. But unlike most of you, when it came time to get a real job, I stuck with what I had done in college -- and with what I loved -- and kept working as a bicycle mechanic. That was my profession between 1972 and 1989 in shops in New Hampshire, Vermont and California, where I live today. During those years I assembled and repaired thousands of bikes. Sold a bunch too. Built a couple of frames plus hundreds of wheels. And I introduced the great sport of cycling to legions of customers. I LEARNED EVERYTHING I COULD about bicycles and repairing them through experience, reading and from all the people kind enough to show me the way. Plus, I got serious about riding, first touring (across the U.S. in 1979) and then racing -- everything from road and cyclocross to mountain and triathlon. Road racing is still a passion. In 1989 my cycling background and degree in English led to a full-time job with Bicycling magazine. RBR's Ed Pavelka was the magazine's executive editor then and hired me to run the new West Coast editorial office. At Bicycling I became the technical editor, handling how-to articles, buyer's guides, bicycle road tests, the Tech Q&A column and the New Products department. I still have an Excel spreadsheet showing nearly a thousand products that went through my hands. I also served as the magazine's curator of bicycle history and collectibles. I DID ALL OF THE WRENCHING, too, before we expanded the office and hired a mechanic. And I was in charge of the photo shoots, experience that came in handy when I was asked to rewrite the photo-intensive book, Bicycling Magazine's Complete Guide to Bicycle Maintenance and Repair. Today, I put my cycling knowledge to use by working for a website content provider in the bicycle industry. We work with many of the top shops in the country, helping them have pro-quality online businesses. My job is making sure that our online library has all the bikes, accessories and cycling articles that shops could want. Also on the internet, I maintain a personal website where I help people get into cycling and share info and photos of many of my cycling collectibles, including 600 head-tube badges, old magazine and catalog covers and two highwheelers. I also run a Q&A blog and have a Twitter account. I welcome you to visit. I'M STILL CRAZY ABOUT CYCLING and ride literally every day. In fact, I haven't missed a day in more than 15 years, some 5,700 consecutive rides (and counting). My original goal was to ride daily for 10 years. But after that milestone I keep right on going because bicycling is what I do and who I am. Good rides! Jim