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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11 comments
Is he related to Lars Boom ?
to be fair, the gas bottle would probably give more protection in a crash than a bit of polystyrene would.
Nice. But an unsecure combustible likely to explode and rupture the feet would be *more* opposite.
Well, I was looking at it more from the angle of an unsecure combustible likely to explode and rupture the head as opposed to a secured protective hat designed to protect the head.
'literally the opposite of a helmet' wouldn't have any head involvement. *Shoes* are probably the opposite of a helmet.
That man's got a lot of bottle. The stakes are high if it falls ….. BOOM!
Can't see Elf and Safety here being impressed . You'd probably get a arrested.
That's literally the opposite of a helmet.
I'd say having a big bottle of explosive gas on his head causes drivers to give him a wide berth... Er, so yes the opposite of a helmet which causes drivers to think it's ok to drive close because you are 'protected'.
No more excuses, need to learn to track stand...say what a gas tank on his head (who would believe that if they didn't see it?)...it's either time to try extra hard or just give up
But now I'm wondering, did he learn to carry the gas tank first, and then track stand, or track stand and then carry the gas tank.
The guy is a legend and he probably doesn't know it.
Impressive skillz. But then that bloke does have a quite a low centre of mass
Impressive or what? He would have made a hit at the revolution series version of the go slow race.