The cycling community lost one of its greatest personalities on Sunday 4th May, when John Stevenson* died peacefully overnight. At road.cc, we were lucky (or sometimes unlucky, if you’d got on his nerves) enough to have worked with him towards the end of a brilliant and varied career in journalism, so we’ve picked out some of our favourite Stevenson stories on road.cc and ebiketips from down the years.
> Read our obituary to John here
We can’t stress enough that John’s time at road.cc, although spanning almost a decade, was just the tip of a very successful iceberg when it comes to his contribution to cycling journalism, and the wider bike industry. If we were to include his work from Mountain Biking UK, Cyclingnews, Bikeradar and others this round-up would take days to put together, but hopefully this mini selection of 10 John-penned articles will be a joy to read, learn from, and fervently agree/disagree with his many hot takes…
When John reviewed a £5 note
I briefly remember signing in for work one morning back in 2017 at 9ish as usual, and someone asking what John was up to when he failed to say what he was doing for the day. A couple of hours later he simply stuck the link up to this, a review of a £5 note – primarily as a tyre boot, but also to buy cake. Though John did admit to his dislike of “the veneration of Winston Churchill” on the note, it didn’t prevent the currency from getting a 10/10 score.
A scoop with Chris Boardman: “Helmets not even in top 10 of things that keep cycling safe”
Helmets cause endless debate on road.cc, and John was very, very much in the ‘it’s up to you’ camp when it comes to wearing them. Back in 2014, this interview was influential in establishing Boardman as the cycling advocate he now is, and he’s arguably at least as well known for his work outside of elite sport nowadays. We still daren’t wade too deep into the comments section…
Chris Boardman: “Helmets not even in top 10 of things that keep cycling safe”
Debunking the ‘red light-jumping cyclists’ myth
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John had some notable online run-ins with people and organisations that could be described as less cycling-friendly, but almost always brought receipts. Exhibit one is this analysis of a carefully edited video showing cyclists jumping red lights, that paints a different picture if viewed in full as John breaks down in the article.
London taxi drivers claim film shows most cyclists jump red lights – but does it?
Not again!
John’s article debunking the infamous L-shaped crank was shared maybe once or twice a year as part of our features and buyer’s guide schedule, mostly because lots of people read it each time… and became something of a running joke, due to allegedly being republished a lot more than it truly was according to a healthy selection of our readership that had seen it before. It even spawned its own April Fool’s article, and in reality the reason it’s so memorable is because it’s a bloody good read (the first time, and maybe the second and third).
L-shaped cranks — explore the crazy idea that just won’t die
A modest proposal…
It’s probably the most controversial thing ever published on road.cc. We’ll let John say the rest…
Involved in a crash? Here’s a modest proposal
John’s brief stint as a terrorist
It turns out it’s not saying your English that will have you thrown in jail, but taking a photo of a police car parked in a bike lane could according to a slightly oversensitive Cambridge police officer back in 2015…
Where cycling products go to die
John wasn’t really one for gimmicks when it comes to cycling tech, not least cycling indicators, a product category that even the most neutral observer would agree has largely failed to take off. That’s despite thousands of discontinued versions sat on eBay, crowdfunding websites, and archived episodes of Dragons’ Den (that said, you can actually still buy Cycl’s Winglights for £29.99 at Halfords).
Dragons’ Den backs indicators: another dodgy decision from the dragons on a cycling product
Another debunking
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In this piece, John crunched the (dodgy) numbers from a survey that was used to attack cyclists in a number of news publications at the time.
Anatomy of a lie: How Guide Dogs London fabricated an attack on cyclists
Not-so-greatest hits from Shimano and Campag
The clear explanations of what went wrong with each of these design fails from Shimano and Campagnolo is a great read, that will appeal to readers with very little technical knowledge as much as those with heaps of it. John had that knack of appealing to the nerdier cohort of our readership without making the information impenetrable to those of us with lesser bike maintenance skills and knowledge.
10 of Shimano and Campagnolo’s worst ideas
E-bikes vs cancer
The list of bike-related things John didn’t like is perhaps as long as the stuff he approved of, but he credited e-bikes with keeping him fit enough to carry on riding through numerous rounds of chemotherapy.
This piece on ebiketips was written before John’s cancer rapidly progressed, making it a difficult read in some parts, but would undoubtedly inspire anyone in a similar position to reap the benefits of riding with electrical assistance.
* We’ve used John’s surname that he went by for most of his life, because that’s how most of you will have known him; however, to correct the record, John reconnected with the family of his biological father in the months before he died, and decided to change his name to John Abbott Valentine. It’s not for us to share exactly why he came to dislike the ‘Stevenson’ name, but rest assured, John’s signature colourful language was used to justify the name change.
6 thoughts on “John’s greatest hits: a selection of the best articles from our legendary late contributor John Stevenson”
Thanks for this.
Thanks for this.
A very good idea, and a
A very good idea, and a fitting but no doubt incomplete obituary for those of us who didn’t know him personally.
All good Jack, we will be
All good Jack, we will be burying John Valentine but part of the day will be the John Stevenson memorial ride as that was his professional name and I suspect would have been used as his byline had he continued to write.
Some of my favourite writing
Some of my favourite writing of John’s was the infrequent setting straight of misbehaving below the line commenters. Not so much withering criticism as evisceration. The well-written take down is an under-rated art form and he was great at it.
He didn’t fanny about when
He didn’t fanny about when doing that!
TheBillder wrote:
I well remember him tearing Nigel a new one, Nigel and all his subsequent personae regularly whined thereafter about “People who are not temperamentally fit to be moderators”!