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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12 comments
It's like the cold war never ended! Glimpsed across the divide being taken out of the boot of a Trabant.
Weight looks very high and forwards. Wonder how much braking force you can apply before you go over the handlebars?
That looks horribly unstable and I dont want to ride one thank you - but some clowns will buy it.
And if you really want to get rid of your dirty oily old chain drive there is always the belt which is much less fuss all round and you dont need to reinvent anything
Inner city dwelling hipster commuter types will probably love it.
In the video it mentions gears, Sturmey Archer? But how do you attach the peddles?
Kill the Fixie Abomination!
+1
No energy loss?
Not one for the sprinters...
That is quite interesting, I would like to try one but I wonder how stable it is at higher speeds, almost looks as if might jackknife.
Oh dear...
Did he really invent polish?