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Ipswich police appeal for information about cyclist missing since New Year's Eve

Gavin Francis' bike found near bridge on January 2...

Suffolk police are appealing for information about cyclist Gavin Francis who has not been seen since New Year’s Eve.

The 44-year-old was reported missing by his family on Wednesday January 1 having not being seen since around 5:45pm on December 31 when he left his home in Purdis Farm near Ipswich to go for a bike ride.

On Thursday January 2, police found Gavin’s bike on steps near to the Orwell Bridge.

Since then Suffolk Lowland Search and Rescue, the coastguard and Suffolk Police including the NPAS helicopter have made numerous searches of the areas. Additionally work has been done to ascertain whether Gavin has been in touch with any friends or family but no evidence of any contact has been found.

Gavin is described as white, 6ft tall, of average build, with dark brown receding hair, blue eyes and is clean shaven. He was last seen wearing a navy blue lycra cycling top with a white stripe down the side and navy blue lycra cycling shorts.

Officers are keen to hear from anyone who may have seen Gavin in the area of the bridge on the evening of Tuesday 31 December.

Anyone with any information that may help is asked to call Ipswich Police on 101

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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