Hi, just adding my 2 cents onto your sentiment. The photographer and equipment reviewer Ken Rockwell has a similar aesthetic on his homepage: https://www.kenrockwell.com
While supported by pay product links, this site contains no ads other than all the copy. His content has no dumb pop ups or any janky junk, however it will still satisfy a startup chief-of-design's checkbox by loading extremely slowly (due to the many full size image examples on every page, in this case)
Ken Rockwell is nothing like Sheldon brown. Rockwell gets paid by manufactures to review their gear, and it’s ALWAYS a favorable review for the $$$$$ items. There’s no ads cuz he’s paid to put that info there.(product placement at its finest, if you will) Sheldon brown was an old guy that loved bikes and was full of knowledge, and his site was full of more information than just gear reviews, and some people loved and relied on it so much they decided to keep the site up after his death.
While supported by pay product links, this site contains no ads other than all the copy. His content has no dumb pop ups or any janky junk, however it will still satisfy a startup chief-of-design's checkbox by loading extremely slowly (due to the many full size image examples on every page, in this case)
I love it when Noscript has little to do.