John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
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22 comments
Baa Baa.
''if your sat-nav is telling you to do something dangerous, don’t do it''
so next time you hear 'At the next turn, run with scissors' you know what to do folks.
Who is the idiot?
http://beyondthekerb.wordpress.com/2014/02/25/idiots/
Yes, if you ride onto a motorway as an adult then you are an idiot, or a complete retard even.
As a road user you should know the rules and laws.
So, you're an idiot for cycling on a motorway, in your own dedicated 3 metre, separate from the 70 mph traffic. Instead, you're supposed to cycle on A-roads *mixing* with 60 mph to 70 mph.
Strange, bizarre attitudes to cycling safety in this country.
Which bit of crossing over two slip roads doesn't involve mixing directly with traffic?
It is not just motorways which have slip roads. Many (legal to ride) dual carriageways have them. A procedure for crossing them at right angles and then rejoining the main carriageway (or vice versa) has been established. I have seen white lines on the road marking out this route.
That's my local motorway junction (junction 10). I'm sorry but I don't buy any suggestion he didn't know he was joining a motorway, bearing in mind that bridge looms ahead of you all the way up and you are already climbing towards it as soon as you join the slip road.
If it was a genuine mistake, I can't see what prevented him from stopping and turning round on the hard shoulder and scooting back down.
The police say he rode/freewheeled down as far as junction 12 (the M60/M62/M602 interchange), which meant he decided to ignore the Irlam exit (junction 11) just after the bridge. He will also have had to come off the hard shoulder and join the motorway traffic at the on and off slip roads for junction 11.
And if he was trying to continue through the Junction 12 interchange when the police caught up with him, where there are daily bottlenecks and RTAs as cars filter onto the M60, he's lucky still to be alive.
C*ck.
Farrell, top sharing.
I know we should be all po-faced and critical but...I bet everyone of us is just a teensy bit jealous. The descent would have been epic. You would aero yourself to the max and for weeks afterwards you would get the giggles every time you remembered.
Please say he filmed it!
Still not sure why a cyclist on the hard shoulder would cause 'traffic problems'. After all, he has a good 3m separating him from the vehicle traffic, so even the worst drivers (even those with dying parrots ) have room to get past!
(Also can't see why cycling on a hard shoulder is actually any more dangerous than cycling with traffic on a dual carriageway, but there you go....).
It wouldn't, it's just your run of the mill average dumb motorist types having their whinges backed by the bib condoning said whinging and attempting to keep the status quo going.
Shouldn't the headline be 'idiot on bike' rather than 'lost cyclist'?
Was it a Garmin?
These sat navs that are supposed to be used on bikes should have the motorways removed from their maps.
I don't think this fella was that lost, I think he's just gone for it, the fact he's taken his feet off the pedals to freewheel is suggesting to me that it was fixed.
Bet you nobody touches his Strava KOM for that.
I doubt there are any Strava segments on motorways.
There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio...
This is the rope swing I mentioned earlier under the Barton Bridge:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9bj5Rh-9tE
That is spectacular but I couldn't do it myself.
You do have to wonder about some people
This also highlights the need for better Cycle sat-nav sites/apps. Google's is not brilliant. When planing routes I use either Cycle Streets or British Cycling's route planner. Both will route you down dual carriageways which I believe to be stupid and poor design. I know cyclists aren't banned from dual carriageways but when you consider most drivers treat them like motorways why would anyone want to cycle along a dual carriageway.
Am jealous, to be honest.
I'm with you, I'd love to blast over Barton Bridge on a bike.
I'd also like to do the rope swing those kids rigged up there too.
I have dodged traffic on the bridge trying to pick up rugby shirts that had blown out the back of the car after we'd set off and drunkenly forgot to close the boot.
That's a solid piece of advice, that.