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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54 comments
looking at streetmap, its full of cars parked on the pavement. Is this not illegal? I don't think L&Q will tell them off for that.
https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=RM8+3LF&ll=51.554114,0.137436&spn=0.013...
I bet it's because all the cars are parked (illegally) on the ****ing pavement!
Looks like a horrible place to live, can't even teach the girl to ride in the garden as I doubt any of them have more than a postage stamp.
Maybe we should have a whip-round and buy said 3 year old a drum kit, or a one-man-band outfit? That'd please the fun police!
What a bunch of absolute f*cking c*nts. Seriously. I mean please, just f*ck off and get a life. As others have said, if your car means that much to you, and you'd prefer three-year olds not to have healthy, beneficial fun and exercise, you have some terrifying priorities, a badly skewed sense of community and most likely a trumped-up sense of your own importance. F*cking w*nkers
Wow that escalated as I typed. I mean it though!
*Retreats from computer, does nothing about situation, hopes that getting angry anonymously somehow does something*
An excellent point, but one I fear will not have entered the thick skulls of the ignorant burghers of the housing association
They've banned children not adults
Dagenham = Barking = BNP = Nazis
That's just embarrassing. Makes me glad I'm Canadian and NOT living in the UK. Really? How stuffy and prudish do you have to be to BAN children from playing outside?! Terrible.
The people that live in this neighbourhood should be ashamed of themselves.
What a hell hole to live in.
I'd contribute to a moving costs fund for her family!
[[[[ Nah---it's a misprint. Should read, "strives to create places where people want to die".
P.R.
I don't think H&S has anything to do with it - it's purely so their precious hunks of bank-owned metal don't get damaged.
It's nothing to do with being in the UK, could happen anywhere, just a selfish nimby attitude.
LOL, troll tastic perhaps as there are no bike racks as far as i'm aware in any Leith Hill car parks...
A reflection of wider society, I'm afraid.
But there are in some. Even if none are present that does not give anyone the right to damage someone elses property.
I had my car damaged by drunks once and kids bikes three times in five years, then struggled to get insurance because all incidents coined against my insurance, as the drinks and children didn't stop to exchange details! That was in an edge of estate car park, so if there was a car park, I'd agree with banning cycling in it, but not the whole estate! Over the top L&Q!
In the article above it says "No bikes, no ball games." I have not seen what signs are posted at this particular location but I have seen similar signs elsewhere. I imagine,
the intention, reprehensible as it is, is probably to ban children cycling, but the wording references just bikes not the rider. I would agree that if you cycled home from work to this estate you would have no problems. However, in my opinion, the wording does reflect an ingrained attitude that cycling is something children do and adults grow out of it to do grown-up things like drive cars. We have a lot of work to do in this country to get over that attitude.
Stephen
Funking tragic really. Ban cars, not bikes. And what a soulless dump of a place to live.
Striving to create a place to live"?
Sounds more like a place to die, to me.
I lived in a place like that for 8 years - only difference being that we owned our houses. Still had interfering busybodies telling us how to run our lives. When we first saw the place we marvelled at how tidy everything seemed. We soon, but too late, realised why.
No doubt there are plenty of examples of bikes being damaged by cars but I don't suppose that's an issue of note.
Just checked the highway code for a clue on what the actual rules are; sadly no guidance for how very young cyclists should behave, where they should ride or what their rights are.
f***ing disgusting.
stay indoors and dont make a sound is pretty much what they are saying!
That is the trouble of building high density housing on a small space of land the cars have to park on the pavement otherwise fire engines and ambulances cannot get through, piss poor design by a f***wit for maximum revenue. This also highlights the ‘true’ corporate message of L & Q and that is kids don’t earn money so can f*** off regardless of whether or not they cycle. The best option is don’t live in any L & Q properties.
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