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.
Add new comment
61 comments
The shocking thing is these morons aren't paid peanuts!
This has made my day!
Please people make this go viral!
My experience of PCSO's is not great, they try hard and mean well, but....
I recently had a humorous and unprintable exchange with a real Police officer about a PCSO who had been sent out to guard a puddle of water! There were hundreds of puddles everywhere! But this one was clearly very special and needed its own PCSO!
Reversing van in a pedestrian zone, where's it's warning reversing sound to alert passers by? Think the police need to red tape and fence off the van...sorry Officer it's allowed to because it's not classed as an articulated lorry, I do appologise!
stop digging that hole you are in! please!
I bet that copper is getting his @rse handed to him by his colleagues, what a knob.
Unlikely that they will give a damn, actually.
Sometimes I think some of these PCSOs and Police Officers do things out of boredom. This is probably one of those times.
I think the spectacular waste of everyone's time was more than made up for by the entertainment value here
Not sure I would of been that patient to be honest! Should of just admitted he was wrong when the signs were pointed out!
"you know the golden rule of authority: it never backs down"
Andy Kirkpatrick
Most of the PSCOs they dragged in for Operation Safeway in London recently weren't any better informed, sadly.
Is it beyond the wit of police forces to educate and train the people who work for them, especially when doing tasks of this nature?
Phew that is painful to watch ......... a learning experience for the policeman, especially now it's all over the internet, but once he realised that he was wrong he should of apologised and let the cyclist go on his way.
I am surprised the cyclist wasn't searched under the terrorism act, or worse detained for filming in a private place or some other game the police play these days. That said policing isn't an easy job and lets not be too hard on this officer of the law. He's just trying to do his best (badly). We also can't be sure of the orders he's been given by his superiors.
One hopes.
I'd rather he were gainfully employed washing my nan's bedpans.
1 - He's not a police officer, he's a PCSO
2 - The 'orders' were a request from some busybody parents to probably 'do something about those cyclists' as referenced in the video
3 - The whole interaction had NO legal basis
No, incredibly, he is a police officer. His female colleague, there for support (snigger!) is a plastic bobby.
The route, the road that he cycles up and the road he is intending to turn in to, is clearly marked on the Reading Cycle Routes map here: http://www.reading-travelinfo.co.uk/cycling/network-map.aspx as the Purple "Town Centre Route", as is the Yellow "Pedesterian area, cyclists dismount" zone which is right of the junction that is pointed out in the video. The police persons don't know what they are on about.
Oh dear. Looks like the PC misjudged it and then kept digging rather than lose face.
Would be interesting to see just how many people have actually been knocked down by bikes there as he claims.
Gobsmacked, simply both police officer and pcso are too stupid to wear a uniform.
If the council had seen a need to ask them to stop people riding in a cycle lane then the council should have had a planning meeting to change the use of the path! and then change it. Just another example of a copper not having a clue about cycling. Personally I would have rode off saying arrest me!!!
Didn't hear the word "Pleb" once
So, they're taking orders from random parents now, are they?
A real police officer would have set the worry warts straight I'd hope.
Hope that guy doesn't get to become a proper copper.
Well, as my mate who was a proper copper sometimes remarks, the entry qualifications for the Police really aren't that high.
Non existent, infact!
That was really funny, thanks!
The words under the sign are most surplus AND confusing. Kingston has the same wording, so you get glared at if you ride through there, but you're allowed to. In fact, that's the only way I've managed to find the entrance to the (shared use) cycle route, and thereby avoid the terrifying ring road.
'I thought you weren't going to stop.'
Thought crime alert.
Well it made me smile.
Wonder if the copper stopped the cyclist coming from the other direction right at the end of the video.
I think the copper has missed the point - the lorry is allowed down there because he's making a delivery - errr the cyclist is allowed to cycle down there because he's on (wait for it) a cycle path!!
Pedantically, it's not a "bike lane" as such: it's a street where motor vehicles are prohibited.
Not a "bike lane", but it is explicitly called out as part of Reading's cycle network.
http://www.reading-travelinfo.co.uk/media/99664/reading_cycle_routes_net...
Grid square D3.
Pages