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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7 comments
Its a real shame the Road Circuit has been dropped, as it becomes more and more difficult to use Public Road Race Circuits these Closed Road Circuits will be our last bastion.
I'm surprised they've dropped the road circuit, yet refuse to even contemplate, or look at the possibilities of having a track with a roof. The velodrome in Cali is classed as an outdoor track, but has roof over it. Why don't they look at something similar?
I know if there is no security in place once all this get's built, the tracks are going to get destroyed by the neds.
Just to correct the first paragraph, the proposed hub will not be on the Meadowbank site, it is at Hunters Hall as stated later in the article.
For "loss of green space", I think you can read "loss of football pitches" in this case.
I'm very disappointed that they have dropped the road circuit. There is a lot of demand for a closed road circuit in Edinburgh. The circuit currently used at Ingliston is unavailable for a lot of the year because of other events, and is very expensive to hire. A road circuit would have been relatively cheap to run and could have been used year round for competition, coaching and training.
Having said that, the basic 1km road circuit proposed in the original Council options would not have been very effective.
I'm sure the proposed outdoor track will be used (Meadowbank velodrome has run successfully for years, even without a roof) but I think a road circuit would have been much more practical and would have been used by many more people.
On a positive note, Fife is proposing a dedicated road circuit, and there is also a plan for a road circuit in Linlithgow. If these are developed successfully, I think they will be very successful. It's just a pity that Edinburgh Council don't have the same vision.
It's a shame that the two options which included the road circuit for the Jack Kane Sports Centre at Hunters Hall have been dropped but I kind of understand why.
I live just down the road and already this year there have been fights between residents and the council over plans to build a school on existing green space in the area. So the sensitivity is heightened.
Though having said that I'm not sure anyone in their right mind would ever go walking in this park currently as it is well known as a place you don't want to hang about as it always seems to be full of local neds from the neighbouring estate either tearing around on motorbikes, smashing stuff or attempting to break into the cars parked at the current sports centre.
It is a shame that the Velodrome will be outdoor, apart from the weather aspect, I wonder how often riders will be presented with glass, rubbish, people or motorbikes on the track.
The East side of Edinburgh is poor in terms of quality sporting venues and could do with a few high quality venues like this. But they nee to be secure so that kids and adults that genuinely want to benefit from them can do so.
+1
There are plenty of other green spaces in Edinburgh that could have been used instead and where the ned count is lower.
Mind you, a lot of BMX tracks tend to be built in pretty tough areas. As a sport BMX can attract people from council estates, and that's no bad thing either. Two of the UK's current world class riders, Tre White and Quillan Isidore, are from South London estates for instance.
Not having a covered track does seem like a poor idea. It wouldn't be so hard (or expensive) to construct a semi-permanent building using pre-fab components for the outer structure and this would also get round some of the planning issues.
So let's get this right track racing ( now primarily an indoor sport) is going to have an outdoor track in one of the worst places weather wise in this country, but the road circuit(primarily an outdoor sport) has been dropped. That makes perfect sense
Once again the Council of the City of my Birth has proved to be a bunch of short-sighted Scrooges..... An outdoor track in Edinburgh, even with an "All Weather" surface, will be unusable many times during the cycling season. And the lack of a Road Circuit at Hunter's Hall is inexcusable. There is precious little "Green space" on the plans shown, but I notice plenty of football pitches, of which there are already a plethora in Edinburgh. One has to question whether or not the Council has any interest in Cycling at all -did they spend all the money on that stupid tram system?