“The hardest days of our lives”: Tarling family mourn death of Fin as GoFundMe for Welsh cycling legacy fund exceeds £27,000; Westminster Council impounding electric hire bikes… again + more on the live blog
"Our broken hearts will never be fixed"
There is, sadly, only one place to start today, as reaction continues to come in following the tragic death of Fin Tarling at the Volta a Portugal.
> Teenage British cyclist Finlay Tarling killed in crash involving driver at Volta a Portugal
The crash occurred when a driver on the course was travelling in the oncoming direction and struck the 19-year-old who was riding behind the peloton. CNN Portugal captured footage showing the aftermath of the crash, including the broken windscreen and the broken bicycle frame strewn on the ground.
Tarling’s death prompted his NSN Development Team to withdraw from the race, whilst the Volta a Portugal continued and was marked by both stage winners over the weekend dedicating their stage victories to the Tarling family. The decision to continue the race was reportedly taken after consulting with the family, although the question of whether it was appropriate to continue racing in light of such safety deficiencies should be addressed at some point.
In the meantime Tarling’s parents, Michael and Dawn, released a statement on Instagram yesterday morning:
“This has been the hardest couple of days of our lives and it’s taken us a bit of time to be able to post this.
“One of the things that has helped carry us through is the wave of posts, messages, emails, articles and calls from across our family, friends, team, local and sporting communities. Hearing how lovingly and fondly Fin was thought of has been a huge help to us.
View this post on Instagram
“We simply can’t thank you all enough for the support we’ve had.
“I don’t know how we carry on from here but we’ll figure out with the support of all of our family, friends and community.
“Whilst our broken hearts will never be fixed, he was not only our son and brother but our best mate. Gentle, loving with the driest sense of humour we will miss him terribly.
“Whilst he was only 19 his short life was packed full of wonderful experiences and achievements and we couldn’t be prouder of him.
“If you’re heading out on your bike in the next few days give him a thought as you clip in.
“We will of course share funeral details as soon as we know.”
In the meantime, a GoFundMe page has been set up with the support of the family, “In Loving Memory of Finlay Tarling.”
Supporters are invited to donate to create, “a legacy project providing an opportunity to help future generations of young Welsh riders discover the freedom and confidence that a bike can give a child.
“We hope it can also bring some small measure of comfort and peace to Dawn, Michael and Josh, as well as to his extended family and loved ones.”
In the time since we started writing this blog entry, the total donation total has exceeded £27,000 from around 750 donors.
Everyone at road.cc would like to send their condolences to the Tarling family…
A new deal for the Westminster people?
I blame the Americanisation of our society and, to a lesser extent, Franklin D. Roosevelt for the phrase ‘First Hundred Days’ creeping its way across the pond. Sure, if you’re a transformative US President elected on a mandate of enacting sweeping changes to bounce back from the Great Depression, maybe it’s a useful turn of phrase and barometer of progress.
But if you’re Westminster City Council, governed by the Conservatives for all but four of the past 60 years, I think you’re taking the mick.
Still, as part of the local authority’s 100 days initiative, fresh from wrestling Labour out of power after one term, the council is taking action to ‘protect’ Westminster’s streets… by impounding electric hire bikes.
Westminster’s streets are not a free-for-all 🚲
During our first 100 days, we’ve stepped up enforcement against badly parked dockless bikes to help keep our pavements clear and our streets safe.
We’ve:
✔️ Started seizing and impounding bikes left dangerously across… pic.twitter.com/r9s2CGXyry— Leader of Westminster City Council (@Leader_WCC) August 17, 2026
In a brief video, the council’s deputy leader Caroline Sargent, explains that e-bike operators, including Lime, Forest and Voi, will have to pay to get their fleet back.
“In our first 100 days, we’ve made one thing clear: Westminster’s streets are not a free-for-all.” Sargent says.
Sargent’s words are accompanied with footage showing e-bikes parked at pedestrian crossings in Piccadilly, some on their side. The e-bikes are not on the road but are blocking pedestrians from crossing the road. Despite their being no mention of e-bikes on the council’s 100 days policy pledge, such a policy move is not particularly surprising.
The borough’s MP has lobbied for action to be taken over e-bikes on pavements, whilst the council itself has hinted it would support the introduction of national speed limits for all cyclists, only for statutory restrictions to prevent the council imposing stronger measures. For context, all legal e-bikes have a motor restriction of 15.5mph (25kph).
Interestingly, the council, under Labour leadership, has previously championed creating e-bike parking bays to combat rising demand causing obstacles for pedestrians, but there’s no mention of any such proposal in the council’s latest video.
Meanwhile e-bike impounding isn’t new, not even in Westminster where the practice was first reported almost four years ago the day…
> Westminster starts removing hire e-bikes from central London streets on safety grounds
It should also be said that councils are responsible for mandating the use of e-bikes in their borough. If they’re that unhappy with a ‘scourge’ of e-bikes in the borough they could either cut the number of operators, the size of an operator’s fleet, or up their contract price. Instead they’re charging the e-bike providers for their service, then charging them to have their bikes back.
E-bike providers are far from blameless but without authorities providing them parking spaces there are limitations as to how and where they can instruct users to leave their parked bikes. So we’re left with a snazzy policy announcement targeting e-bike providers that actually continues an existing initiative, worsens active travel availability, and doesn’t adapt to Londoners’ changing, more sustainable transport habits. Top marks all round…
Mudslides on the Tourmalet
We’ve seen mudslides affect the Tour de France route in previous years, most notably in 2019. And it turns out we were only a month away from the Tourmalet wreaking an entirely different kind of havoc…
View this post on Instagram
Nice to see it’s raining somewhere at least…
Jonas Vingegaard ends season
It feels a little jarring to move back to the world of racing, but the world continues apace.
Visma-Lease a Bike have announced Jonas Vingegaard will not race again this year after his recovery from injury took longer than expected. The Dane enjoyed a successful spring, winning both Paris-Nice and the Volta a Catalunya before cantering to a maiden Giro d’Italia title. The honour made him the eighth male rider to win all three Grand Tours.
But a chastening Tour de France followed where, after taking the yellow jersey in the opening team time trial, the Dane repeatedly lost ground to Tadej Pogacar, finding himself 2’42” behind the Slovenian after the race’s first mountain stage and far closer to the podium battle behind than the race for the top step.
Then on stage 15, after he was disturbed by a 2am anti-doping test earlier that day, Vingegaard crashed and broke his collarbone, ending a run of 5 consecutive years Tour de France podium appearances.
In a statement, the 29-year-old said, “After a long and intense racing period, a recovery period was planned after the Tour de France anyway. Due to the collarbone injury, the start of my training has been delayed and it is not possible for me to get back to top level in the coming period. The focus is on preparing optimally for the goals of the 2027 season. I will discuss these specific goals with the team in the coming period.”
It’s unclear which races Vingegaard may have targeted, with the Dane not renowned for his ability in one-day races and no mountainous major stage races planned for the autumn. Rest seems like a very sensible decision…
Department for Transport admits illegal electric motorbikes “cannot be identified” in UK road collision statistics
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I agree about the importance of this 'wrong 'un' criterion. Local observation, as well as in more crime-filled locales such as Blackpool and Preston, indicates that wearing a face mask is a sufficient but not a necessary condition for diagnosing an illegal electric motorcycle. I even saw one such crim on the Garstang Sainsbury's access road recently. However, as Lancashire Constabulary officers have not even managed to work out that RLJs and years without MOT are offences, I don't hold out much hope that they will be willing or able to take advantage of this latest intelligence
Sounds a bit over-complicated, when you can just look at the rider and decide whether they look like a wrong'un.
@ROOTminus1 The complications are in teaching law enforcement what defines the boundaries of an EAPC and how to accurately test those parameters Nonsense! The Nation's Finest are well aware that the infallible test consists of raising the driving wheel off the ground, spinning the pedals/maxxing the throttle and observing the speedo: if it says 0, it's legal and if it reports over 25kph it's illegal and should be destroyed or sold off privately
Here's a hot take: there's no such thing as an illegal EAPC. If a modification to an EAPC pushes it's capabilities outside the definition of a legal EAPC, by exclusion it is an e-moto / motor vehicle. If the e-moto has not met the minimum legislative requirements for road use, it is an unclassified motor vehicle, illegal for use in public. Simple. The complications are in teaching law enforcement what defines the boundaries of an EAPC and how to accurately test those parameters.
@eburtthebike - the Isle of Man has a 'low corporate tax burden', no capital gains tax, stamp duty or inheritance tax. Personal tax is on a 'worldwide income basis' making it a tax haven. It comes as no surprise that the Isle of Man puts 'money' first. There's a reason the likes of Baroness Mone are Manx residents.
However, all of the internal shots are of the Bike Bag Pro still.
The picture at the top today shows a bag with the right label on it: Road Bike Bag Pro.
@neilmck Always worth pointing out when that study is cited that the Berlin paths in question were not segregated paths built onto roads but lanes put on to existing pavements where they were obscured by trees, bus shelters, traffic furniture etc. It's often quoted by opponents of segregated infra to prove it doesn't work, all it proves is that painting lanes on existing pavements doesn't work.
I think its a shame you have a view like this. I strongly applaud UK manufactures and am always intrested to see how they are getting on, even if they are not. Road.cc ran an intresting story here and it outlines that we need to support uk based companies.
This review is now over two weeks old and still has photos for a completely different bag. Anyone reading this who is in the market for a high-end transport solution that requires minimal disassembly (admittedly not me, I have a Buxumbox Ventoux) and makes a cursory glance at this review will immediately rule it out based on the images. A real shame as it looks like a decent bag otherwise, the review gives it a 9/10, but nobody prepared to pay this price will look twice based on the photos.