He could never ride a bike without pondering the mathematical mysteries that it contained. He competed in amateur races while a teenager and at university, but his obsession ran deeper. Papadopoulos, who is 62, has spent much of his life fascinated by bikes, often to the exclusion of everything else. The bicycles that he kept are those that mean something to him. “I got rid of most of my research bikes when I moved,” he says. The handmade frame that he got as a wedding present is coated in fine dust. Their paint is scratched, their tyres flat. Seven bikes lean against the wall of Jim Papadopoulos's basement in Boston, Massachusetts. He was also not given a chance to respond to a comment about his ability to finish things.

He has actually published three first-author papers, but just one related to bicycle science. The e-mail list he moderated was also founded by him, and is called Hardcore Bicycle Science. His time at the US Geological Survey was part of an internship, not a full-time job. He did not write to bike companies asking for work until the 1990s.

Jim Papadopoulos spent a whole academic year at Oregon before starting at MIT.

Michael Papadopoulos moved his family to the United States more than a decade before taking a job at Oregon, not in 1967. Editor’s Note (7/29/16): An earlier version of this story contained several biographical inaccuracies and did not give Jim Papadopoulos a chance to respond to the comment about his ability to finish things.

73 trail 90 wont go into gear