Funniest pics from the ToC

Seems an odd choice of MTB to pit against the gravel bike. An aggressively slack hardcore hardtail with 140mm forks rolling on 29 x 2.4 tyres is not built for anything resembling the use-case of a gravel bike. Reminds me of a buddy who picked up a second hand On-One S36 for cheap because the original owner couldn't fit rear panniers onto a full suspension DH bike for commuting. Surely a fairer comparison would be an XC frame with no more than 120mm of travel on the front wheel, but is that too much of an issue to fit drop bars and still have a ridable geometry?

Safety fears. The figleaf of respectability for the habitually lazy.

How about a Giant Defy? A Shand Bahookie? Or a Specialised S-nark? Hmm... you could be right...

The TDF Femmes Ventoux stage was one of the best races I can remember seeing for some time. Great break and break by Kasia and it stuck this time. Having a classic long ascent gave the pure climbers a chance to show what they can do. Maybe the most memorable since Anna Keisenhofer's solo win in the Tokyo Olympic road race. Thorough preparation and planning, perfectly executed.

Specially for HarrogateSpa, your daily dose of bile from the Telegraph: "The e-bike is the most complete expression of the bullying arrogance of cyclists" https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/08/25/e-bike-is-the-most-complete-expression-of-cyclist-bully/ Mainly conflating ebikes with Lime bikes, and complaining that "there is a general problem with bicycles of all kinds ... bicycles take up An Awful Lot of Space." Unlike, say, the big metal boxes that we happily decorate our streets with. "In one generation, bicyclists have declined from being put-upon herbivores to becoming recklessly entitled, righteous, selfish bullies." - think they may have confused cyclists with Telegraph writers there.

I suppose suspicious would be preferable to surly, but I'd rather a bike with a more positive personality myself.

Or forget about it completely.

Across the Irish Sea in England, Labour has announced a plan to get at least 60 per cent of school-age children cycling, walking, or wheeling to class by 2035 as part of a £4.5bn active travel strategy As a, now lukewarm and disillusioned, Labour supporter I would be laughing at this laughable doomed-at-the outset 'plan' just like the people supposedly responsible for its implementation must be sniggering: there is a 0% probability that the 60% stated target will be achieved and the true percentage will be a fraction of the target and may even be less than it is now (just like the Climate Change mitigation targets, then!) The January 2026 DfT Road Safety Strategy implementation was declared in Parliament to be in the hands of Lilian Greenwood MP: Since 2010, the number of people killed or seriously injured (KSI) on the roads has plateaued, despite advances in vehicle technology. The current approach is no longer delivering the required road safety improvements. Vulnerable road users, such as pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists, and children, remain disproportionately at risk of serious injuries and fatalities We all know that the police will not lift a finger to prevent or even discourage close-passing attacks on cyclists, and I have no doubt that the Road Safety Strategy has already been forgotten. Lilian Greenwood is the minister who responded a year ago to my MP's letter about long term VED evasion around Garstang (such as BF64 TGE, HY66 ZZB, MM10 EOG, HN21 VXB, WU67 BLF etc. etc) with 'at DVLA we make VED easy to pay and difficult to avoid'! Greenwood has now been shunted off to some other ministerial home for the Incurably Idle, Inept and Forgetful, and the minister now responsible for the Road Safety Strategy is Justin Madders, presumably someone else suitably experienced in Doing Nothing.

I've always wanted a suspicious bike but I bet it'll all go wrong if I buy one.

£6k and you don't even get carbon bars?