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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17 comments
The police attitude to assaults on cyclists these days is absolutely shocking, and I think it's about time the government did something about this to be honest. The amount of assaults that the police can't be arsed dealing with, despite decent helmet cam footage showing assailants face, registration numbers, date/times etc. is getting beyond a joke.
If it was a serious assault, which it could be argued these attacks on cyclists are, and the victim was a random person in a city center with no witnesses, you can be damn sure that the police would be looking for CCTV footage of the incident and using that to identify those responsible and prosecuting accordingly. What's so different here. Oh yeah, it's only a cyclist.
Car drivers deliberately drive into cyclists to intentionally knock them off should be prosecuted for "assault with a deadly weapon" as that's exactly what it is !
event if this guy didn't have helmet cam footage, the police should still be looking for CCTV footage, and having a word with the driver, at the least (if the victim, got a note of the registration no.).
when the police say the wont be taking it further its that just the lazy plod that happens to have the case? I reported an incident once and the copper did a sterling job despite no whitnesses or actual damage (some twunt trying to intimidate me with car and threats to kill). sadly I think it comes down to the copper that picks up the job
Right here goes, as a copper who now treats what I do as simply something that pays the bills and enables me to buy new bikes, due to a number of factors including constant media negativity and the opinions of armchair generals, a few observations......
Firstly, the plod is far,far, far from perfect, I'll grant you that, but in this case
1) The case is still 'open', you've got a named DC appealing for witnesses. Witnesses are good, they help get prosecutions at Court, they may even persuade the CPS to get a job to Court in the first place
2) There is a crime number on the article above, this will have been given to the cyclist, with the injuries described it's an ABH, not a job you can just 'write off'
3) No one in their right mind would fob off a ABH victim who has helmet footage of the assault, and not just the number plate, come on Road CC, getting Daily Mail'ish on us here, did the helmet cam show the assault or not? This day and age with Plod looking to get rid of numbers on the payroll, that's a job loser.
As I said earlier, some things we do in this job leave me shaking my head, but the vast majority of the people you see out there are trying to do their best, even if now it is only about the payday at the end of the month.
And finally..........
They always say society gets the Police it deserves
The article only mentions the helmet camera regarding the similar incident last year, not this one.
You can read the Police response to that yourself, the victim published it.
http://s14.postimg.org/9lugdlaap/IMG_20140202_221322.jpg
And this is the original recording, considered insufficient to provide "a realistic prospect of achieving a successful prosecution at court".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKfGIAIeLYY
Yep, I stand corrected on the Helmet cam regarding the incident.
The Youtube footage is compelling, moped rider should be off road. End of.
Unfortunately in this job, realism quickly kicks in, unless it's a watertight chance of conviction there is little or no chance of Court, even then 'beyond reasonable doubt' never ceases to amaze me sometimes.
In the case of the incident in the headline of the article, without independent witnesses, it's 'he said, he did' and vice versa. That's why the appeal has gone out.
The location and time of this assault seem to match a report over on the CycleChat forum.
http://www.cyclechat.net/threads/cyclist-attacked-in-dagenham-for-a-laug...
The injury reported is slightly different, broken wrist Vs fingers. Can anyone on road.cc confirm this is the same incident? In the description, the scooter was actually intruding on a fully segregated cycle track, the A13 at that point is basically a three lane urban motorway.
As I can see a few people referring to the video evidence, there is no mention of video in this incident. The cyclist attacked last year was wearing a headcam, not this one.
You're right. The Road.cc write-up is unclear unless read closely.
Is It possible for the Police to be any more useless? I seriously doubt it! I honestly have no Idea what purpose they serve other than to bully the innocent. Think I'll kick the wing mirror off a Car on the way home tonight, as long as nobody other than the driver sees me do it it's perfectly legal based on their logic.
There is a link to the the 2014 incident on the New Kent Road. The lack of deterrent, following the decision by the Police to do no more than send a roadsafe letter to the moped rider.
The failure to prosecute reckless behaviour allows it to continue.
No surprise as the plod are generally fucking useless. I was chased and pushed off by scrotes badly bruising my hands, hurting my knee, damaging my bike and ripping my jacket when I went down, two independent witnesses, but plod said it was unlikey the scrotes would be caught as there was no CCTV to id them. WTF! The police are fecking useless.
[original]No need for an independent witness if they have the victim of an assault, and video evidence. That's BS. [/original]
Road.cc: Fix your writing. The article is overall misleading unless read as two completely different incidents! Some sub-headings would help.
The Police in this case seem to be doing the right thing.
Is the video on you tube? I guess it doesn't show the kick.
If it shows the number plate then someone might spot it.
Don't get that many mopeds with pillion passengers. Especially legally.
That is a disgrace, why bother with helmet cams if the police cannot be bothered to do something about it?
The Met should get off their arses and make the roads safer for all road users.
By that logic, why bother following up murder, rape or sexual abuse claims, after all there are rarely any other witneses to those crimes in many of those cases either.
oh FFS, police can't be arsed to investigate again! Moped rider thinks he has got away with it and does it again in future, next time the cyclist is not so lucky.
Even if the police can't press charges, have a f***ing word with him hopefully he won't do it again, and he knows the police are aware so if he tries again....