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
36 comments
Mornin Dave!
Is it just me or are some Stim-isms missing this morning? Makes the comments in response seem unbalanced. Maybe a wee trim of the whole thread back to before it got silly?
Anyway...
It's a touching story and what looks like a great restoration. I remember lusting after a Bomber... Until I tried to lift one!
Morning. All good with me. Thank you for all the positive comments and thank you Stim for deleting your previous comment. I am guessing you didn't even look at the clip before posting.
Great job. The postman's comment nearly brought a tear to the eye. My first bike was a Striker and then a Burner. Then a blue racer, cannot remember the name. After that, a 531 Corsa with 105 and the Bio-pace rings. Nearly everyone one of my bikes were Raleighs.
Hope to see this on my local roads.. fantastic and needs to be ridden!
Perhaps if you had read the text on the screen you would know why he restored it. It was his brothers who died.
That's a great restoration. The colours are just fine. Beautiful.
Smile deffinately on my face.
I didn't have a Bomber, I had a Grifter. Loved it.
Have a nice Monday.
Pages