Honor John McLaughlin: Support His Family's Future

John Charles McLaughin- Teammate, Friend, Father, and Husband.

On Saturday, February 22 we lost a teammate and family member while doing one of the things John Mclaughlin loved most, cycling. John was a fierce competitor, a great friend, a devoted father, and a loving husband.

His 65th birthday last year exemplified John’s love for his friends and family. His wife Marilyn gathered his friends and two daughters for a surprise birthday party. The next day he celebrated a different way with a 100-mile birthday ride from Anaheim to San Diego with his buddies from the LA Tri Club. He loved his family and his triathlon and cycling community and was a proud member of the LA Tri Club, joining in 2004 as member #2666, always wearing his kit in a race and hat around town. John loved being on the pavement just as much as he loved being in the mountains. He was a staunch competitor and training long and pushing hard to get on the podium. John loved going fast- especially downhill, and was up for a ride anytime, anywhere and just about with anybody, though especially with his closest friends. He was loyal as the day was long. John always wanted to move the bar forward. Most recently, he had been practicing his track stand every day and finally mastered it! As a mathematician by training, he loved his Strava stats. These stats exemplified John’s passion for triathlon, and especially cycling. In 2023, John was active for 221 days, was training and racing for 441 hours, cycled 4,081 miles with 296,233 feet in elevation as found on his Strava page. In 2021, John was one of the select few Club members who finished the 50/50 Challenge.

John supported all his friends any way he could- whether it was a tire change on the road, supporting their favorite cause through a fundraiser, or most recently, shifting through ash looking for his friend’s personal items lost to the Palisades or Altadena Fires. He was always there for us.

John was a doting father who couldn’t spend enough time with his two daughters, Hana and Talia. Whenever they needed something or he could spend some special time with them, John did. With the engagements of his two daughters last year, he was proud and thankful they both had found their life partners. John was also thrilled about adding two sons to their family, Tyler who is engaged to Hana, and Ryan who is engaged to Talia. He and Marilyn were the best of friends and supported each other, unequivocally for their almost 30 years of marriage. Together they raised two beautiful and kind daughters, loved their dogs over the years, traveled, hiked and spent time with their cherished friends. Recently in some spare time while not training, John was trying to stump AI with math problems and leave it to the mathematician to have almost succeeded.

Their father is gone way too early and not able to walk his daughters down the aisle and have that their first dance, and his wife has lost her life-partner, friend and cycling enthusiast.

We his friends from PCH 101 and teammates from LA Tri Club want to raise funds to ensure Hana and Talia can have the wedding John would have wanted this June and next April respectively. John had also been out of work for many months so John and Marilyn’s financial reserves have been depleted. This fundraiser will help Marilyn to have to worry less during this period of uncertainty and heartache and provide for their daughters as John would have done.

We will miss you John, and your confident and caring smile. Please help in any way you can with a one-time gift or if you are able to, a re-occurring monthly gift to help through this GoFundMe. We will also be having a memorial ride to gather John’s friends together doing one of the things he most loved, cycling. More information to come on this soon. Thank you again!