Matthew Butterman

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Beautiful Precision is my goal...

Robust and effective communication through the written word is my passion! The name of my copywriting venture, Verba Optima, is translated from Latin as "best words", and my goal as a writer is to choose words that convey my client's message with beautiful precision. 

The majority of my portfolio is comprised of stories written for Handbuilt Bicycle Guide, the website that I am part-owner and News Editor for. Other areas of interest, and topics of recent articles, include music and fine arts, health and fitness, cybersecurity and cryptocurrency technologies.

No topic is off the table for me, and I relish the opportunity to learn and to expand my horizons as a writer while in pursuit of my clients' goals.

PezCycling News •

Hunterdon: The Hell Cyclists Love

Admit it - you’ve done this too: You’re riding along in the early spring, gilet zipped up against the chilly air, imagining you’re in full pursuit of Peter Sagan, or Tom Boonen, or Sean Kelly, or Roger De Vlaeminck in the closing kilometers of one of the Spring Classics, the Monuments of cycling.Most of us have never raced in Paris-Roubaix or the Tour of Flanders, but New Jersey’s Hell of Hunterdon ride will get you about as close to those grueling experiences as anything this side...
Diabetes Daily •

Sleeping Better With Type 2 Diabetes

Getting a good night’s sleep is essential to good health for any population, but for those with a chronic health condition like type 2 diabetes, it takes on added importance. Fortunately, the steps you take to better manage your type 2 diabetes will also help you sleep better at night. Here are a few ways to help ensure a good night’s rest. We’ve all been guilty of putting other concerns before getting a good night’s sleep: work or school demands, family and travel being just a few things that...
Philly Bike Expo •

Velo Orange: Amis des Randonneurs

Randonneur bikes are on a bit of a tear right now, as evidenced by the “rando row” on the Philly Bike Expo floor inhabited by builders like Johnny Coast and J.P Weigle. Although rando bikes aren’t deliberately designed to be anachronistic, with the fenders, lights and greater tire clearances required by randonneur rides such as Paris-Brest-Paris, they hearken back to the days when such design characteristics were de rigeur. This presents a bit of a problem for ride participants and the builders
Diabetes Daily •

Wake Up! Diabetes and Caffeine

For people with diabetes, there are some advantages and some disadvantages to consuming caffeine. As with the general population at large, individual reactions to caffeine vary widely. When used in moderation and within safe limits (generally accepted as no more than 400 mg daily), caffeine is acceptable for people with diabetes. Caffeine is the drug of choice for millions of people worldwide. The average adult in the U.S. drinks two 8 oz cups of coffee per day, which contain approximately 280...
Philly Bike Expo News •

Breismeister Bicycles: Just For You

New York City has a reputation for being, well, a little impersonal. With about 10 million people concentrated in a region smaller than Rhode Island, it’s easy to get lost in the crowd. Doug Breismeister, proprietor of his eponymous brand, doesn’t want you to feel adrift in a sea of bicycle-mounted humanity. His made-to-order custom bicycles and attention-garnering paint jobs betray this sentiment. Breismeister’s beat is his frame building studio in Brooklyn, but as an active rider...
Handbuilt Bicycle News •

New England Builders Ball, part one

The New England Builders’ Ball returned to Boston on September 22 for its 8th annual handbuilt bicycle show. The New England Builders’ Ball returned to Boston on September 22 for its 8th annual handbuilt bicycle show. Always held in a distinctive space, show founder/director Eric Weis tailors each Ball to create a fun and relaxing atmosphere, more like a gallery opening than a traditional consumer expo, so that exhibitors have as good a time as attendees. The mix of new and returning framebuild
Diabetes Daily •

Breakout! Five Ways to Leave Your Comfort Zone

The day to day struggles of living with diabetes are significant, but it’s only by testing your limits and leaving your comfort zone that you will discover a stronger, more adventurous, more outgoing, kinder, and more generous version of yourself. As part of our collaboration with Scare Your Soul, here are five ways for people with diabetes to break out of their comfort zones and leave their couches behind. Between these three activities, you can probably find one that you like to do. Doing som
Diabetes Daily •

I Have Prediabetes: Now What

So your doctor or healthcare provider has told you that you have “prediabetes,” and you may be wondering what this means. Prediabetes is a clinical term that means your blood sugar level is on the high end of the normal range of blood sugar levels (80-120 mg/dL). In numbers, prediabetes is signaled by a fasting plasma glucose level between 100-125 mg/dL, an oral glucose tolerance test level of between 140-199 mg/dL after two hours, or a hemoglobin A1c test level of between 5.7 to 6.4 percent.
Diabetes Daily •

Managing Your Diet While Away at College

College is a time of tremendous growth, but also of routine-altering upheaval for most young adults. Here are a few tips to keep your diet on track and your diabetes management stable during these important and formative years. Colleges and universities are increasingly aware of the role that nutrition plays in academic performance and positive social engagement for students. In the midst of hormonal and emotional challenges to students’ physical and mental well-being, a healthy diet will...
Handbuilt Bicycle News •

Andre Haak's 1991 Colnago Master: Tall cool one

Andre Haak bought a Colnago Master frameset that was ridden by Belgian superstar Edwig Van Hooydonck to victory in the 1991 Tour of Flanders, and recreated a Buckler team replica bicycle as Van Hooydonck would have ridden. Dutchman Andre Haak owns a 1991 Colnago Master in Buckler team livery originally used by two-time Tour of Flanders winner Edwig Van Hooydonck of Belgium. Haak bought the frameset earlier this year in Ghent, Belgium from a former Buckler team mechanic who confirmed that it was...
Handbuilt Bicycle News •

Classic Rendezvous: Wayne Bingham's Colnago with "Ernesto" brakes

Wayne Bingham brought an early-1980s Colnago to the Classic Rendezvous Weekend that featured many Colnago-engraved components, including a very special brakeset. Wayne Bingham, renowned bicycle collector and owner of vintage bicycle emporium Velo Classique, brought a trio of Italian bicycles with him to the Classic Rendezvous Weekend that each featured brakesets manufactured by Modolo, but branded with the names of other component manufacturers. Modolo first introduced their brake levers in...
Diabetes Daily •

Sports and Children with Diabetes

The science is clear: people with diabetes face no physiological barriers to athletic success. In a large number of sports, people with diabetes have risen to the highest levels of performance. In fact, as I postulated in an earlier article, the only reasons we don’t see more standout athletes with diabetes is because 1) the number of people who have diabetes is a fraction of the population at large, and 2) there is still a lingering perception amongst some youth sports coaches that people with
Diabetes Daily •

Diabetes Behind the Wheel

One enduring summer tradition is the road trip, and whether you’re heading to the beach, to the mountains, or to visit family, if you’re getting behind the wheel of a car you want to make sure your diabetes doesn’t lead you off course. Here are a few tips for staying safe while driving with diabetes. NASCAR driver Ryan Reed, and IndyCar drivers Charlie Kimball and Conor Daly all have type 1 diabetes and have not let that keep them from the fast lane. Through careful management, all three drivers...
Diabetes Daily •

Boating and Diabetes: Enjoy Your Outing on the Water

With the heat and the long days of summer upon us, many people take to the water, whether for kayaking or rafting through whitewater rapids, canoeing on a lake, or hitting the high seas on a sailboat. All of these activities are well within reach of people with diabetes, but like anything having to do with diabetes, advanced planning and the right gear will keep you on course to enjoy your outing on the water and prevent you from having to abandon ship. Diabetes or not, if you’re new to...
Handbuilt Bicycle News •

David Staudacher's 1992 Vitus 992: King Kelly's weapon

At the Classic Rendezvous Weekend, David Staudacher displayed a replica of the French bicycle that Irishman Sean Kelly rode to a dramatic victory at the Italian classic Milan-San Remo in the twilight of his career. David Staudacher owns a 1992 Vitus with an international race-winning pedigree. At the Classic Rendezvous Weekend, he displayed a replica of the French bicycle that Irishman Sean Kelly rode to a dramatic victory at the Italian classic Milan-San Remo in the twilight of his career. In
Handbuilt Bicycle News •

Classic Rendezvous Weekend: The Last of the Mohicans

The Classic Rendezvous Weekend, a celebration of vintage, classic and retro-inspired bicycles, takes place this weekend, May 18-20, in Greensboro, North Carolina. Organizer Dale Brown says that the 2018 event will be the final one. Dale Brown has been a major player in the vintage bicycle world since, well, many of the current bicycles in his collection were contemporary, cutting edge models. The long-time proprietor of Cycles de Oro in Greensboro, North Carolina and the popular vintage bike...
Diabetes Daily •

I Lost My Insulin!

Maybe it’s because I never joined the Boy Scouts or did military service, but I’ve never been the most organized person, and truth be told, I’m a bit scatterbrained. Nevertheless, having diabetes demands diligence and preparedness, and so when it really counts I get my act together. I’ve traveled extensively domestically and internationally during my 40-plus years with type 1, but on all those trips I never once lost my insulin permanently, until this April 1st. Yes, April Fools Day.
Diabetes Daily •

Wilford Brimley: Mr. Diabeetus

You may know him as the gruff baseball team manager and owner Pop Fisher from the 1984 film The Natural, starring Robert Redford. You might also recognize him as one of the star geezers from 1985’s geriatric reincarnation epic, Cocoon. His raspy baritone voice extolled the consumption of Quaker Oats as “the right thing to do, and a tasty way to do it” in an ad campaign during the 1980s and 90s. But you almost certainly can identify Wilford Brimley as the no-nonsense spokesperson...
Diabetes Daily •

Does Having Diabetes Give You an Advantage?

My general practice doctor, an osteopath, once told me that having diabetes is a blessing because my good health habits will ensure a long and robust life. While that might seem preposterous, it’s an enormously positive outlook on life circumstances, and this attitude in and of itself may enable the rosy outcome it predicts. But his explanation of the blessing is also absolutely correct: whether inspired by the specter of complications down the road, or just by the desire to live an active life
Diabetes Daily •

Sports Nutrition for Athletes with Diabetes

Barely 25 years ago, your choice of sports nutrition was between orange and lemon-lime Gatorade, but today it’s a nearly 30 billion dollar per year market with a head-spinning array of varieties and brands. We’ll take a look at how athletes with diabetes should make their sports nutrition choices and give recommendations based on both nutritional data and my own experiences from 32 years of endurance cycling with type 1 diabetes. Any discussion of sports nutrition should begin with a simple...
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