Honestly i searched. I can’t see a thread on this. Apparently Chipps is off at Easter.
Thanks for the magazines and ask the best for the future
I’m currently working on issue 166 of Singletrack Mountain Bike Magazine. Appearing in April, this will, unbelievably, be the 25th Anniversary issue of the magazine and the 164th issue that I’ve edited (hey, I delegated a couple of issues while I was on sabbatical, OK?) as well as marking my 33rd year as a mountain bike journalist.
The April issue will also be the final issue with me in the Editor’s chair. I’m stepping down after 25 years; I figured that a quarter century is a pretty good shift for any job. Singletrack will be carrying on, of course, and I’ll be leaving the magazine in good hands: Benji Haworth is going to be taking over as Editor of the print magazine, ably assisted by my business partner, Mark and the many staff and freelancers who’ve been along with us for the journey.
As for me? After the end of March, I’m really not sure what I’ll be doing next. I did look into a couple of things I could do, but nothing has come of them. And, no, I’m not retiring – that involves savings and organisation, neither of which I have much of. So as of April, I’m going to be looking for another gig – hopefully involving bikes and hopefully in France, my adopted home. That's assuming I'm not completely unemployable these days! 🤣
Thanks to all of the contributors to, advertisers in, and readers of, the magazine over the last decades. I’ll look forward to catching up with everyone soon, once I’ve got used to a life without weekly, monthly, or bimonthly deadlines… After this next deadline, of course!
Hi Chips,
This is a thank you to you specifically, but obviously the whole team involved in the singletrack world.
Thank you for all your efforts. You've changed lives, mine particularly. I became a keen mountain biker right the way through until injury stopped me being a mountain biker. Your magazine inspired me to create the Big Bike Bash, which has gone on to be a great success. A quarter of a billion pounds to charity, all inspired by you and the team.
You've provided a great social network. I've often called random Singletrack people to stay when I'm away on work or to meet up for rides. You've created a marvellous community. You should be very proud of all you've done, so thank you from me, and I'm sure most of the Singletrack world.
WCA
All the very best, Chipps...you will be missed.
Hope you start another great adventure very soon!
This feels like a fairly big miss-timed announcement oversight from STW Towers?
This feels like a fairly big miss-timed announcement oversight from STW Towers?
My thoughts exactly. Particularly now there are share holders
Best of luck in the future and thanks for all you did in shaping STW
Well thats a shock.
You deserve a break after all that time mate. Hope you find a new place for your talents and enthusiasm. I couldn't imagine a life after windsurfing but first newspaper ownership and now Koi sales have crept into my life.
And of course if not there's always busking...
Enjoy your new freedoms.
I don't often look at the forums and wish I hadn't today.
Good grief, Chipps, First no Hannah, then no Chipps. What is to become of us? Who will start each edition of the magazine? Who will write the weekly word?
Perhaps you could start a new magazine for us oldies, and name it Cycling Weakly.
All good wishes, thank you for everything, and I hope things go well. As Charlie said when he left, it doesn't cost much to be penniless.
What about this young upstart ! 😁
Chipps I think you should get that Quantocks ride in before you disappear into the sunset 👍
good luck mr chipps with all that you want to do 🙂
i have loved this forum since i found it in 2009 (didn't have internet before then). and the mag too i must add.
i hope you still might frequent the forum and guitar thread from time to time 🙂
Good luck in the future Chipps!
Hope you find something awesome to do 😁
Thought I'd clicked on the 'worst looks' thread by mistake 😀
All the best Chipps, you've been synonymous with Singletrack for as long as I can remember - in a good way! Enjoy whatever you find next.
This feels like a fairly big miss-timed announcement oversight from STW Towers?
Maybe it was announced but has been lost on this mess of a website 😀
I remember back in the 90s I used to bump into Chipps at various races, often enough to say hi, etc. (Easier for me to remember his face as a minor c'leb, and, of course, it was a smaller scene back then!) At one race, he was on a single speed, I was geared and we couldn't shake each other (was that Ludlow, maybe?). The fact I don;t remember which of us crossed the line first would suggest it was Chipps, but it was a long time ago. At another (maybe Margam?) I found him wheeling a review bike (Whyte PRST-1?) across the field with a very bent fork. I pointed out that the press blurb for the bike referred to the J motion that the fork made, and how that that then obviously ended up in 'bent fork'. That comment made it into the mag, which may have been MTB Pro, but I never got my royalty cheque! 😀
Then I bought the first issue of STW and loved it. I used to look forward to it arriving, but stopped subscribing a couple of years ago when the quality seemed to drop drastically to me. This also seemed to be when Chipps took a back seat.
So, 30 years or more of entertaining me - there aren't many people who can say that. Good luck with whatever you do in the future, Chipps.
OMG @oldfart. That’s the byline from my first published article. MTB Pro I think. 1996!
my wife is speechless 🙂
Chipps is stepping down as editor. That is all. As he says, he’s not retiring. He will remain my business partner and co-owner of Singletrack and I fully expect we’ll all continue to read his words well into the future.
Yup, the way I read it is he’s stepping aside again as editor not leaving.
25 years ago I met Chipps, Mark and Shaun at NEC looking disheartened after having their magazine stock nicked. Managed to persuade a sticker swap with them. Then along came the forum at its very earliest stage where I first made contact with a wide spread group of like minded people. From there I became friends with the STW HQ lot and many old faces of the forum, very much friends with many now and sadly some are no longer with us.
I stood by Chipps once at the bar at the Dyfi Enduro in 2014
Um... That's it really.
Best of luck Chipps 👊
Who?
🙃
At one of the bike shows my mate got his hair cut by Chipps! What he was doing with the clippers there, who knows.
My other memory is seeing him at a Polaris with overshoes on - where he'd been walking in them the toes were stuck straight up like Alladdin shoes 😆
Good luck for future endeavours Mr Chipps 👍
I stood by Chipps once at the bar at the Dyfi Enduro in 2014
Um... That's it really.
Best of luck Chipps 👊
Sort of similar but saw him emerge from a cubicle as I was waiting in the loo queue, may have been more like the 2016 Dyfi. I couldn't say hello as I had pressing needs 😀
Chipps is stepping down as editor. That is all. As he says, he’s not retiring. He will remain my business partner and co-owner of Singletrack and I fully expect we’ll all continue to read his words well into the future.
Phew. For a moment I thought another part of my mtb world had just upped and left 😲. All the very best for whatever you choose to do Chipps. You are a legend. Just glad you're not going too far away.
All the very best Chipps! You and everyone else at ST have no idea of the positive effect you've had on many of our lives.
Many thanks and all the very best for the future mate!
Good luck Chipps, you and Singletrack have been such a big part of my biking world - you’ll be missed!
Good luck with your future endeavours, Chipps, glad you’re not retreating from STW completely! You’ve been a background fixture for much of the time I’ve been riding mountain bikes, things wouldn’t be right without you there somewhere.
All the best 👏🏻👍🏼
Thanks for the kind words, amusing anecdotes and inevitable terrible photos, all. 🙂
We're working on the next issue at the moment and there'll be plenty of 25th Anniversary sentimental stuff going on there, so don't worry, I'm not sneaking out quietly... And I'll still be around (and I even get to keep my email address as it's all I've had this century!)
I'm hoping to actually have some time to get back to the UK for a few events and things, so expect to see me in the start-line bar, portaloo and the usual places...
And I might even have time to put together some Pyrenees trips for people! But don't count on it. 😉
My brief. brush with a superstar , Chipps came to Wurzel Central and rode with us on the Quantocks and Mendip in the foulest weather possible and it became an article in the mag , get me ! Hence my request for a return match 👍
Random fact I was shopping in a supermarket in Whistler some time later and someone came up to me and said " Hey did I see you in Singletrack magazine! 😁
At one of the bike shows my mate got his hair cut by Chipps! What he was doing with the clippers there, who knows.
I was at the bike show with Total Bike magazine, which I was Dep Ed of. There'd been a redesign of the mag (or perhaps it was even the first issue, I don't remember), but the extra design time had meant that it was late to the printers, so we had a booth and no magazine to show off. We were all wearing 'boffin' lab coats and I'd brought my hair clippers in my luggage, so we just started doing charity haircuts. It all went OK until the Marines doing security started lining up for razor-sharp military fades. That stretched my skills a little...
Wow Chipps where have the last 25 years gone?
I've been lucky enough to meet and ride with Chipps a few times. What a top, knowledgeable, friendly chap he is.
All the best to you and your lovely wife.
Bunnyhop x
so we just started doing charity haircuts
Me and that mate also got a good Tim Wassisname* feature, riding the South Downs with Rory Hitchens and Tom from Middleburn (I think) in Chipps' shortlived but fab publication Mountain Bike World. I looked pretty sexy on my shiny Cannondale back then 😎
*lovely routes feature chap.
Tim Woodcock?
That's him 🙂 Where is he now?
(Seem to recall him saying it was a pseudonym?)
Good luck with your future endeavours, Chipps, glad you’re not retreating from STW completely! You’ve been a background fixture for much of the time I’ve been riding mountain bikes, things wouldn’t be right without you there somewhere.
Chipps has always been there "somewhere". Literally all of MTBing. Pretty much every 24hr race* and seemingly most other events, races, demos, bike shows... Or if he can't be seen in any actual photos, he was probably the one taking the photos.
*last I heard Chipps was in a small and elite cadre alongside Tim Flooks and Rory Hitchins of people who'd attended most Mountain Mayhems (possibly even all of them)!
All the best with your Not Retirement!
Happy Ride into the sunset Chipps.
Look back and see what you have achieved.
I know you and you probably do not know me but we nodded and changed pleasantries a good few times and a good years back now at events with the Singletrack van beside your gazebo.
We need a UK Mtb museum to remember and save memories of British MTB scene before the knowledge and history is lost forever.