John Reynolds is a diminutive, quietly spoken, respectful, and loving family man, who wouldn’t look out of place working in a bank. But don’t be fooled: he was one of the toughest racers to ever throw his leg over a motorcycle, though you wouldn’t know it by looking at him.
A picture caption in Gary Pinchin’s 2006 book ‘British Superbikes’ says it all: “Reynolds – pure class and a determined bastard who never knew the meaning of defeat.”
John Reynolds has been around motorcycles his entire life. His father, John, raced bikes in the 1950s and his uncle Tom was a Scottish motocross champion and a factory DOT rider, so biking is clearly in his blood. It was somewhat inevitable that John Reynolds himself would race one day, and he started very young.
“I pestered my dad for ages to get me a bike and he finally built me one when I was eight years old,” he says. “It started out as a little Honda 50 step-thru before dad modified it. Then he got me a little Suzuki 80 and modified that for me to go racing on. You couldn't buy bikes for kids to race back then – you had to build your own.”
There were road bikes from an early age too. “I got a Suzuki AP50 when I turned 16 and then passed my test on a Suzuki A100,” Reynolds
