About Cycling Weekly: who we are, what we do and how to contact us

Michelle Arthurs-Brennan is a traditional journalist by trade, having begun her career working for a local newspaper, where highlights included interviewing a very irate Freddie Star (and an even more irate theatre owner), as well as 'the one about the stolen chickens'.

Previous to joining the Cycling Weekly team, Michelle was Editor at Total Women's Cycling. She joined CW as an 'SEO Analyst', but couldn't keep her nose out of journalism and in the spreadsheets, eventually taking on the role of Tech Editor before her latest appointment as Digital Editor.

Michelle is on maternity leave from July 8 2022, until July 2023.

Cycling Weekly's North American Editor, Anne-Marije Rook, started out as a traditional newspaper reporter and gained some 15 years of journalism experience before making her way to Cycling Weekly. Originally from The Netherlands, she grew up as a bike commuter but didn't find bike racing until her early twenties. As she competed at the elite and UCI level, her journalism career followed, and soon she became a full-time cycling journalist. These days she's less about competition and more about adventuring, yet there's hardly a day that goes by when she's not found pedalling. For Rook, a good week is when all the bikes in her stable get ridden, from her full-suspension trail bike down to her Brompton and some speedy road miles in between

Having trained as a journalist at Cardiff University, Vern spent eight years working as a business journalist covering everything from social care, to construction to the legal profession and riding my bike at the weekends and evenings. He joined Cycling Weekly in 2016. Since then, he's covered Tours de France, world championships, hour records, spring classics and races in the middle east. On top of that, since becoming features editor in 2017, he's also been lucky enough to get himself sent to ride his bike for magazine pieces in Portugal and across the UK.

Adam's greatest love is road racing but as long as he is cycling on tarmac, he's happy. Before joining Cycling Weekly he spent two years writing for Procycling, where he interviewed riders and wrote about racing, speaking to people as varied as Demi Vollering to Philippe Gilbert. Before cycling took over his professional life, he covered ecclesiastical matters at the world’s largest Anglican newspaper and politics at Business Insider. Don't ask how that is related to cycling.

Anna has been hooked on bikes ever since the age of 12, when she rode her first lap of the Hillingdon Cycle Circuit in the bright yellow kit of the Hillingdon Slipstreamers. For a time, her cycling life centred around racing road and track, but that’s since broadened to include multiday two-wheeled, one-sleeping-bag adventures over whatever terrain she happens to meet.

Simon Smythe is Cycling Weekly's senior tech writer and has been in various roles at CW since 2003. His first job was as a sub-editor on the magazine following an MA in online journalism (yes, it was just after the dot-com bubble burst). In his cycling career Simon has mostly focused on time trialling with a national medal, a few open wins and his club's 30-mile record in his palmarès. These days he spends a bit more time testing road bikes, or on a tandem doing the school run with his younger son.

Stefan began working at Cycling Weekly as part of the tech team in late 2020. Starting off riding mountain bikes on the South Downs way, Stefan soon made the switch the road cycling. Now, he’s come full circle and is back out on the trails, although the flat bars have been swapped for the curly ones of a gravel bike. Always looking for the next challenge, he’s Everested in under 12 hours (opens in new tab) and ridden the South Downs Double in sub 20 (opens in new tab). Although dabbling in racing off-road, on-road and virtually (opens in new tab), to date his only significant achievement has been winning the National Single-Speed Cross-Country Mountain Bike Championships in 2019.

Hannah is Cycling Weekly’s longest-serving tech writer, having started with the magazine back in 2011. She specialises in the technical side of all things cycling, including pro peloton team kit, having covered multiple seasons of the Spring Classics, and Grand Tours for both print and websites.  Prior to joining Cycling Weekly, Hannah was a successful road and track racer, competing in UCI races across the world, and has raced in most of Europe, China, Pakistan and New Zealand. For fun, she's ridden LEJOG unaided, a lap of Majorca in a day, won 24 hour mountain bike race and tackled famous mountain passes in the French Alps, Pyrenees, Dolomites and Himalayas. She lives just outside the Peak District National Park near Manchester UK with her partner, daughter and a small but beautifully formed bike collection. 

Rob has been Content Director of Cycling Weekly - and stablemates Bikeperfect, Cyclingnews.com and MBR - since May 2021. Before that he spent two years in similar role at Bikeradar, which followed 12-years as Editor-in-chief of Cycling Plus magazine and eight years at Runner's World. In his time as a cycling journalist he's ridden from London to Paris at least twice, London to Bristol once, completed the Fred Whitton Challenge, L'Etape du Tour and Maratona dles Dolomites. He's also jumped into the broom-wagon at La Marmotte and Oetzaler Radmarathon.

Editor of Cycling Weekly magazine, Simon has been working at the title since 2001. In that time he has written product reviews, features and news. He has covered the Tour de France more times than he can remember along with two Olympic Games and many other international and UK domestic races. Once an aspiring bike racer himself, he can still be seen at his club's evening races through the summer.

Vern carries out the News and Features Editor role across both the website and the magazine.

After cutting his teeth on local and national newspapers, James began at Cycling Weekly as a sub-editor in 2000 when the current office was literally all fields. Eventually becoming chief sub-editor, in 2016 he switched to the job of full-time writer, and covers news, racing and features. A lifelong cyclist and cycling fan, James's racing days (and most of his fitness) are now in the past, although that doesn't stop him banging on tirelessly about "that one time" he nearly rode a 20-minute '10', and planning the big comeback that everyone knows will never actually happen.

David Bradford is fitness editor of Cycling Weekly (print edition). He has been writing and editing professionally for more than 15 years, and has published work in national newspapers and magazines including the Independent, the Guardian, the Times, the Irish Times, Vice.com and Runner’s World.  Alongside his love of cycling, David is a long-distance runner with a marathon PB of two hours 28 minutes. Having been diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa (RP) in 2006, he also writes about sight loss, equality and social affairs.