Charles Manantan

Charles Manantan has been on bikes longer than he's been walking. His parents didn't have one of those baby walkers when he was a kid in San Francisco, but they did have a tiny tricycle (with no pedals) rusting in the back yard. He pushed his favorite toy around on hands and knees (in whatever direction the bars were turned) until they put him on the seat and turned it into a push bike. Two years later, their next-door neighbor (who owned a shop) noticed Charles 2 still running round on the decrepit POS and intervened and with a massively better kit (that, at minimum, didn’t involve tetanus...). Fast forward today and Charles still has access to better bike kit than he deserves, living in AZ and handling mainly technical articles and photography for the past couple of decades for both manufacturers and publications.