Here’s something there should definitely be more of…

I wonder if councillor Moutrey considered spray painting a bicycle with a raised red hand to indicate no cycling. That may have got noticed within the community and perhaps provoked discussion.

I can see compromise coming. Droning round a 20k or whatever lap 10 times will bore the pants off riders, spectators & so ultimately sponsors. That said, we cannot continue putting lives at risk from lack of funding. Maybe some funding from the stupidly expensive streaming services. Maybe cutout some of the tediously long bits, have a combination of laps but keep the sense of adventure, like rallying compared to roundy roundy racing.

Does "embracing gravel" have similar meaning to "faceplanting"?

Being a councillor doesn't actually give someone a carte blanche to go around spray painting on the public highway. Hopefully the police take an interest in this case of criminal damage (with the evidence helpfully documented by the perpetrator), and the council serves him a graffiti removal notice to recover their cost in removing it.

@capedcrusader It's actually pretty simple - sex (or to more precise: attractive appearance) sells. It works exactly the same way with cars. Making the final product look better often costs next to nothing, but it does add value and thus allows the manufacturer to charge more for the same product.

It does mean something: f*** off you lycra-clad car-botherers.

It might mean that, if it was red. But since it's blue it doesn't mean anything.

YMMV. To my eye, while the 'ruby', only available for SRAM S-Works is the clear standout, the rest of the options on the top two tiers (including the single option for Shimano S-Works) are either really boring or, in the case of the two-tone efforts, actively rubbish, while the solid blue that's only available on the bottom two tiers is easily the second best.

@jackcycles It would certainly be interesting to know the prevalence of general cycling amongst children then vs now because its probably pretty unlikely that children who don't cycle much day to day are going to cycle to school.

Why do bike companies insist on differentiating their top tier and lower tier offerings by producing shockingly bad colours for the lower tier bikes? Sucks big time if you ask me.