road.cc: independent news, reviews and buying advice

Launched in 2008, road.cc is the UK’s largest independently owned and run cycling  news, reviews and buying advice website, dedicated to covering every aspect of what it means to be a cyclist riding in the UK and beyond. 

At road.cc we pride ourselves on the honesty and independence of our news, reviews and features, and the expertise of our team of award-winning journalists. Their mission is to tell it as they see it without fear or favour, whether that’s news coverage of all the issues affecting cyclists today, or using all their expertise reviewing the latest bikes and cycling products to give you buying advice you can trust.

Meet the team

Jack Sexty - editor

The editorial buck at road.cc has stopped with Jack since 2020 when he became editor of the site, having joined from 220 Triathlon Magazine in 2017. Jack has a master's degree in journalism, and his journalistic CV contains stints as both a news writer and editor and a tech writer and product reviewer. This combination of journalistic expertise and cycling experience plus bloody-minded integrity made him the natural fit for the road.cc editorship.

A former competitive age-group triathlete, Jack mostly rides his bike around local cycle paths nowadays – with child seat attached – but when he wants to get the racer out and be competitive his preferred events are time trials, sportives and triathlons. He’s also pretty handy with a pogo stick, but that’s another story… 

Tech and reviews

Mat Brett - senior tech editor

Mat has been road.cc technical editor since 2009: testing bikes, fettling the latest kit, and trying out the most up-to-the-minute cycle clothing, Mat’s been writing about all things bike related since 1996, on titles including Cycling Plus, BikeRadar, Total Bike, Total Mountain Bike, What Mountain Bike and Mountain Biking UK. He has edited both Cycling Plus and 220 Triathlon Magazine, and was managing editor of Mounting Biking UK. 

Mat is a Cambridge graduate with a post-grad in magazine journalism. He is a winner of the Cycling Media Award for Specialist Online Writer and regarded by his peers as one of the world’s leading cycling tech writers. He is also a phenomenally strong athlete and rider, winning his category in Ironman UK 70.3 and finished on the podium in both marathons he has run. Now over 50, he's riding road and gravel bikes most days for fun and fitness rather than training for competitions.

Tass Whitby - reviews editor

In charge of reviews at road.cc, Tass is our production pedant, who boldly goes hunting for split infinitives, rogue apostrophes and other things up with which she will not put.

She joined road.cc in 2015, but first began working on bike magazines way back in 1991 as production editor on Mountain Biking UK, then deputy editor of MTB Pro, before changing allegiance to road cycling as senior production editor on Cycling Plus. She's ridden off-road but much prefers on, hasn't done half the touring she'd like to, and loves paper maps. Tass's job is to make sure road.cc reviews meet our (and her) exacting standards.

Stu Kerton – senior product reviewer

Since writing his first bike review for road.cc back in early 2009, senior product reviewer Stu has tested more than a thousand pieces of kit, and hundreds of bikes.

With an HND in mechanical engineering and previous roles as a CNC programmer/machinist, draughtsman and development engineer (working in new product design) Stu understands what it takes to bring a product to market. A mix of that knowledge combined with his love of road and gravel cycling puts him in the ideal position to put the latest kit through its paces.

He first made the switch to road cycling in 1999, primarily for fitness, but it didn’t take long for his competitive side to take over, which led to around ten years as a time triallist and some pretty decent results. These days though, riding is more about escapism, keeping the weight off and just enjoying the fact that he gets to ride the latest technology as part of his day job.

Emily Tillett - tech writer

Emily is our track and road racing specialist, having represented Great Britain at the junior World and European Track Championships. With a National Title up her sleeve, Emily has a BSc in Sport and Exercise Science and a MSc in Sport and Exercise Psychology from Loughborough University, where she raced for the Elite Development Team, Loughborough Lightning.

Emily is our expert on all things training, and when she’s not riding or racing bikes, you’ll likely find her online shopping or planning her next trip. The rest of the office is now considering painting their nails to see if that’s the secret to going fast…

Rebecca Bland - tech writer

Rebecca has been writing about bikes for five years, and she’s written for numerous bike-related websites covering road, gravel, mountain bikes and e-bikes (she’s also a regular contributor to our sister site ebiketips.co.uk).

She's been riding bikes since she can remember, and fell back in love with them after realising it was faster, cheaper, and more fun than getting the bus to work. Nowadays Rebecca races time trials and enjoys all kinds of cycling, from road to eMTB, and is training her border collie pup to become a trail dog.

News

Dan Alexander - news editor

Dan is the road.cc news editor, and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years, mainly writing news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.

Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way. He's a bit strange like that...

Ryan Mallon - senior news writer

After obtaining a PhD, lecturing, and hosting a history podcast at Queen’s University Belfast, Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast.

After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclo-cross, he now serves as the senior news writer at road.cc. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.

Adwitiya Pal - news writer

Adwitiya joined road.cc in 2023 as a news writer after graduating with a masters in journalism from Cardiff University. His dissertation focused on active travel, which soon threw him into the deep end of covering everything related to bikes, and now cycling is as big a part of his life as guitars and football. 

He has previously covered local and national politics for Voice Wales, and also likes to writes about science, tech and the environment, if he can find the time. Living right next to the Taff Trail in the Welsh capital, you can find Adwitiya trying to tackle the brutal climbs in the valleys.

Video

Jamie Williams - lead video production editor

After graduating with an MSc in Mechanical Engineering and BEng in Aerodynamics, Jamie decided that making videos about bikes is quite a bit more fun than sitting at a desk all day designing bolts. Luckily there are always new bikes, equipment and wild claims to analyse, and Jamie doesn’t care whether it’s the latest road bike, gravel bike or XC mountain bike that he gets to swing his leg over.

When not in front of the camera Jamie races bikes (semi-competitively) and manages the Reflex Nopinz Race Team at the UK’s biggest races.