The sudden and tragic death of John Ibbotson is the reason we began this fund. Let me start from the beginning; John lived and breathed cycling, it was his only ambition in life. He gave up his schooling and dedicated every hour to training and racing and his family supported him 100%.
He began as a junior at the age of 12 and rode for the Festival Road Club. During that time he rode the National under 16s road time trial championship (GHS) and came 4th nationally at the age of 14. He also competed in National Cyclo-Cross events during his junior years. John won many of the national under 21 road races and was runner up in the national under 21 series. This result gained him a place with Team Mens Health in 1999, alongside teammates Justin Clarke, Gordon McCauley, Tim Buckle and others. Having turned 21 he proved he was capable of competing against the big guys.
After a successful years racing he joined Gore Bikewear in 2000 where he continued to win races. He then moved to Team Synergy in 2001 which was a stepping stone to his first professional international team, RDM Flanders in 2002. At this point John was living the dream; he had the kit, the bikes, the apartment, the team cars, the desire to win and he was being paid for it! Plus, he was competing against the Pros in the professional teams.
After an amazing but hard season in Belguim, he joined Team Endura in 2003 set up by Harry Lodge and Jane Parsons and based in Italy. Being away from home so much and the realization that he wasn’t going to actually win against these professionals unless he considered performance enhancing drugs, gave John a reality check and so he headed home. He helped to set up and run Team Pacific in 2004 attempting to give it ‘one last bash’.
After a disappointing year John turned his attention to his future; with no qualifications or skills in any other area, he began to consider a way of helping others enjoy and achieve in cycling the way he had. Alongside Stephen Bayliss he set up a coaching company and in November 2004 Fit-For was born. John soon built up a very good clientele for coaching cyclists at every level and Stephen focused on coaching triathletes. The business excelled and it wasn’t long before John had to turn down clients as he simply didn’t have enough time to meet everyone’s needs. He had the perfect job; passing on his knowledge and expertise in a fun and positive way and helping people to believe in their ability, taking clients out on rides to chat, have fun and stop for tea and cake…and he got paid for all of it!
Tragically the bubble burst on Tuesday 27th September 2005. John was found dead at his computer. He suffered an Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Cardiomyopathy (ARVC) which is an inherited heart abnormality. (http://www.c-r-y.org.uk/ARVC.htm)
After John died many people wanted to help in some way, so we very quickly opened up an account with the intention of supporting a young rider and within 2 weeks of John’s death we had raised over £2500! The money steadily came in over the next year and in March 2007, 18 months after his death we had our first meeting to decide on the best way to spend the money. These meetings quickly developed and we decided we wanted this to be an ongoing fund, so arranged 2 fundraising events and began the selection process for the 2008 riders.
The fund has grown dramatically and we now hold 3 fund raising events a year and fund 2 or 3 riders annually.
