“An illegal e-bike is rational response to that pay model”: Deliveroo ‘congratulated’ for being “last people to notice 30mph delivery bikes”; Restore Britain’s “racist” e-bike policy slammed; Trump v cycle lanes; Tour name debate + more on the live blog

Delivery riders, and their preferred mode of transport, have been in the news quite a bit in recent weeks.

Yesterday, in case you missed it, we took a detailed and probably unnecessarily deep dive into Restore Britain’s new ‘regulatory framework for commercial e-bikes’, a confusing policy riddled with contradictions which only served to make it glaringly obvious that Rupert Lowe doesn’t actually know what an e-bike is.

In any case, Rupert and Restore’s bid to “take back our streets” from delivery e-bikes, whether they’re illegal or not, comes after Deliveroo announced its own somewhat belated crackdown on the use of modified, dangerous bikes by its self-employed riders.

> “Our pavements are not racetracks for young foreign men,” declares Rupert Lowe as Restore Britain leader vows to “take back our streets” in bizarre new e-bike policy… that doesn’t make any sense and targets legal electric bikes

As part of its new Ride Safe campaign, the company also called on the government to prohibit the sale of unsafe e-bike conversion kits, while tracking its riders and banning them from the platform if they consistently register high speeds during deliveries.

Deliveroo, one of the UK’s largest food delivery firms, announced that it will partner with e-bike companies including Port, Zoomo, Otto Scooters, and Eskuta to provide riders with a legal alternative. Riders will receive onboarding guidance, and the company will run rider engagement events with councils, police, and fire services to highlight concerns from both sides.

And the response to this initiative from other members of the UK’s bike-based delivery industry? A slow, sarcastic clap, basically.

Following the launch of the Ride Safe campaign, Ben Knowles, the co-founder of Pedal Me, the London-based e-cargo bike delivery company, took to LinkedIn to ‘congratulate’ Deliveroo on their belated contribution to safety and the wider e-bike delivery sector.

> “Adrian, you’re wrong!” Pedal Me’s co-founder on cargo bikes 

“Huge congratulations to Deliveroo, who this week became the last people in London to notice the 30mph delivery bikes,” Knowles wrote.

“And credit where it’s due: they’ve now said it out loud. Their policy director has told The Times that some of their riders are on illegal e-bikes, and that they’re piloting technology to catch them using their own delivery data. Groundbreaking stuff.

“Who else had already spotted them? Everyone on the pavement. Everyone behind the wheel. The London Fire Brigade, putting out the battery fires. The Met, who seized more than 2,500 illegal e-bikes and e-scooters in the first seven months of this year. Basically anyone with eyes.”

Ouch.

> E-cargo bike delivery sector laments pressure from “tax-dodging, modern slavery using competitors” as Zedify goes into administration

Knowles continued: “The riders aren’t doing this for fun. An illegal e-bike is the rational response to that pay model.

“Deliveroo’s solution? Ban the riders. Ask the government to ban the kits. The pay model that put them on those bikes stays exactly where it is. Meanwhile, the costs land on everyone else: fires in people’s homes, danger on our streets, police time, and a legitimate e-bike industry tarred by association.

“Every fix works around the same fact: the model depends on classifying riders as self-employed contractors, and that comes first. Ahead of common sense. Ahead of public safety. Ahead of the risk of modern slavery in the supply chain.

“The problem is the model. It will stay the problem until these riders are employees, so they can be paid fairly, kept safe, and the companies that profit from their work contribute to society like every other employer does.”

> Cargo bike delivery company Pedal Me goes into administration after failing to reach agreement with HMRC over debts

This isn’t the first time, of course, that the Pedal Me CEO has laid into the big multinationals and their questionable employment practices.

Last year, when fellow e-cargo bike delivery firm Zedify went into administration, Knowles highlighted the challenges faced by smaller firms when going up against their less scrupulous, gig economy rivals.

“In a sector where you’re competing with tax-dodging, modern slavery using competitors, you need to be super lean with the vast majority of staff hours focused on revenue generating activities,” he said.

Pedal and Post CEO Christopher Benton also said at the time: “This industry is difficult to make money in and when you’re a more ethical employer, labour costs are higher. Although cargo bikes are more cost-effective to operate, it’s a fine balance to make it profitable.”

Ben Knowles does not hold back on LinkedIn, does he?

After his pretty ferocious comments about Deliveroo and their Ride Safe campaign, the Pedal Me co-founder took the time this morning to eviscerate Rupert Lowe and Restore Britain’s new ‘commercial e-bike’ policy, covered on ebiketips yesterday.

According to Knowles, the former Southampton FC chairman – who he branded a “coward” – and his party are intent on scapegoating and punching down at vulnerable people in the apparent name of road safety, instead of addressing the system responsible.

“Rupert Lowe’s comments this week about ‘young foreign men’ on delivery bikes are racist,” Knowles wrote on the social media platform.

“The problems he lists are about behaviour, caused by a system. The people he blames are defined by where he assumes they come from, and he presents the fix alongside a ‘programme of mass deportations’. That isn’t road safety policy.  It’s scapegoating of vulnerable people.

“The man is a coward: punching down at people who can’t punch back; chasing cheap votes instead of taking on the real source of the problem: the gig platforms and government’s tolerance of their behaviour.”

However, for all the policy’s dog whistling, Knowles did acknowledge that Restore’s point about the difference between personal and commercial riding should be discussed.

“But buried in Restore Britain’s paper is a point that deserves a serious answer: commercial road use is different from personal use,” he says.

“We already accept this for motor vehicles. Taxis, HGVs, and other commercial vehicles are regulated differently from private cars because people working on the road cover far more distance, under time pressure, and that puts more risk on everyone around them.

“Commercial cycling is no different. Delivery riders cover far more distance in aggregate, often faster, and when the business model pays per drop, the pressure to cut corners is built in.

“Look at what we see every day on UK streets: red-light jumping, pavement riding, and riders doing 30mph+ on what is legally an unregistered motorbike that just looks like an e-bike. There is a case for regulating commercial bike use. Done properly, it could tackle all of this, and give workers better protection too.

“That’s the conversation worth having. It doesn’t need a word about where anyone was born.”

I know you’re not supposed to have favourite riders in this job, but Marlen Reusser is up there on my list. The Swiss star is approachable, chatty, down-to-earth, one hell of a bike rider, and – most importantly – tells it like it is.

And she certainly did that at yesterday’s Tour de France route unveiling in Paris. Asked after the presentation what she made of it, the world time trial champion didn’t focus on the Puy de Dôme or the three British stages.

Instead, she questioned why cycling’s biggest race hasn’t taken a leaf out of the Tour of Britain’s book when it comes to naming equality.

“It’s a nice event. What I’m a bit disappointed [by] still is that it’s the Tour de France and the Tour de France Femmes,” Reusser told the media in Paris.

“Where is the Tour de France Hommes? Like, this is weird to me. I don’t understand this.”

Reusser also criticised what she argued was a lack of attention afforded to the Femmes during the presentation.

“We have two nice race directors, but I don’t feel like they’re on the same level. It’s more the men’s director [on stage] that also has next to him the women’s,” she said.

“I think the Tour is doing so great, showing that there is not only men’s sport. We speak a lot about it, but we just should do it more. I wish these little steps to come when we speak about the presentation and the whole thing.”

Marion Rousse, the Tour Femmes director in question, was later asked about Reusser’s comments, insisting that it was “not really the case” that the men’s Tour was presented as more important.

“Obviously the men’s presentation is going to be longer because there are 21 stages against nine,” she said.

The men’s director Christian Prudhomme was also asked by Tom from Cycling Weekly for his thoughts on Reusser’s criticism.

“The Tour de France is a major race that has been running since 1903. The Tour is the Tour, and we’re absolutely delighted that there’s another race: the Tour de France Femmes,” he said.

“The Tour, in fact, is a single event in two parts. We don’t talk about the men’s Roland Garros and the women’s Roland Garros – we just talk about Roland Garros. For us, the only issue is that we can’t run both events at the same time. It’s impossible. It’s not like a tennis match where you play to the right and then to the left.

“When I launched the [Tour de France Femmes] five years ago with Marion Rousse, I said, ‘Long live the Tour. Long live the Tours.’

“I was actually wrong – she’s competitive. I don’t hold it against her – because in fact, it’s the Tour. The strength of this event, the women’s event, is the Tour de France. And the Tour de France Femmes is good for women’s sport. Above all, it’s good for the Tour, full stop.”

It’s been a few weeks but we’re back and making our way to an ethically questionable streaming service near you…

> “In the eyes of the organiser, it’s f**king expensive”: How can cycling improve safety without wiping races off the calendar? + British Cycling and Picnic PostNL’s “toxic” cultures and 2027 Tour de France routes discussed

They really can’t help themselves, can they?

Earlier this week, we were treated to the sight of gun-loving Texas congressional candidate Brandon Herrera ranting about how much he effin’ hates those effin’ cyclists and wishes he could effin’ run them all over (and who knows, some day he just might).

> “I had f***ing fantasies of running them all over and maybe one of these days I will… I’ve thought about ways I could get away with it”: US Republican candidate’s horrifying anti-cyclist rant resurfaces as riders stunned by “how vapid his hatred is”

Now it’s the turn of much-younger-than-he-looks Joe Mitchell, who’s currently standing as the Republican nominee in Iowa’s second congressional district at the November midterms.

Speaking at President Trump’s campaign rally in Sioux City, Iowa yesterday, Joe was full of praise for two of the Donald’s biggest achievements in office.

Joe Mitchell: “Thank God you’re building the ballroom. Thank God you’re getting rid of those awful bike lanes. We don’t ride bicycles in Iowa.”

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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) October 23, 2026 at 2:39 AM

“Thank God you’re building the ballroom. Thank God you’re getting rid of those awful bike lanes by the way,” the 29-year-old (yes, really) said during his speed.

“We don’t ride bicycles in Iowa, we ride Harley Davidsons, isn’t that true? This gentleman up here,” he said, pointing to someone in the audience. “You’re not riding a bicycle, are you? You’re riding a Harley.”

Let’s make American great again… by building ballrooms and scrapping cycling infrastructure, apparently. But hey, at least little Joe could get a free motorbike for his troubles.

Yesterday’s Tour presentation also saw the unveiling of the race’s new Castelli-designed leaders’ jerseys, with the biggest change coming courtesy of this very different white (and purple) number:

 

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Thoughts?

Whatever you may think about the pricing structure (and Tour team presentations being ticketed in the first place), the tickets for next year’s opening ceremony at Edinburgh Castle are selling like deep-fried Mars bars during holiday season in Stonehaven.

The GB Grand Départ organisers have just announced that, thanks to the high demand, all today’s pre-sale tickets are gone.

 

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However, if you missed out today, there are still plenty of opportunities left to snag some seats to watch that annual parade of awkward interviews, courtesy of the governing body and Edinburgh Tattoo pre-sales, which will take place tomorrow and on Monday respectively, ahead of the general sale next Friday.

Despite the high demand for tickets, I’m not sure everyone’s joining in with all the Grand Départ.

“It’ll be pissing down anyway,” Trevor said in the comments under the organiser’s post. That’s proper Scottish spirit there.

I know we bang on about motonormativity and anti-cycling attitudes in the UK, but it turns out even the biggest pro-car zealots on this side of the pond have nothing on the good ol’ US of A.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s profile on Jerry Ross, who injured a cyclist after driving into a group ride while blaring his horn in Georgia earlier this year, is one of the most maddening things I’ve read all year (and I’ve had to read a lot of Daily Mail stories for this live blog).

Reporter Thomas Lake goes out of his way to paint Ross as a downtrodden, frail old man and his decision to intentionally harm people on bikes as a nuanced, two-sided issue where the cyclists are as much to blame for the crash as the horn-blaring, road rage, hit-and-run motorist.

It truly is astounding stuff. And deeply depressing.

Read more here: > Hit-and-run motorist who drove into group of cyclists whilst blaring horn insists he did nothing wrong and the riders “just did what they want”

If you ever needed an illustration of why some of the UK’s supposedly ‘active travel’ routes aren’t fit for purpose, you could do a lot worse than watching this video, in which photo-journalist Olly Townsend is forced to channel his inner Van der Poel to navigate some tightly packed barriers:

 

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A post shared by Olly Townsend (@_ollytownsend)

Now just imagine if he were riding a trike, or a cargo bike, or using a wheelchair, and not a nice Canyon with knobbly tyres.

“This is one of those absolutely shocking bits of infrastructure often found of way marked cycling routes which is designed by a blind engineer, who has never ridden a bike and has no concept of what skills normal people on bikes have,” Olly said.

> “Drivers don’t have to push their cars”: Park barriers designed to stop “speeding” cyclists are forcing families onto busy road with no bike lane, cycling campaigners say

“It’s utterly impossible to ride round on a bike for 99.9 per cent of users of this path. And don’t even dare to bring a cargo bike, trike, tandem etc. Just stick to the super busy main road next door please.

“Last year I probably had 15-20 goes at riding this from the other direction and I did eventually nail it, so I figured it might ‘go’ in the opposite direction too. It only took a couple of goes, a small endo and Bob’s your uncle.

“Still a shockingly bad bit of infrastructure, but at least I know I can beat it now.”

Remember earlier this year when Callum reported on the live blog that Natalie Portman is set to star in a new psychological thriller as a mysterious doctor swept into the seedy world of professional cycling by an ageing rider played by Jonathan Bailey?

No? Well, that doesn’t matter, because filming for ‘Pumping Black’ appears to have commenced in Nice this week. And it looks, ahem, interesting:

 

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What on earth have I just watched?

By the looks of things, there’s been a mass high-speed crash, though it appears that the rest of the peloton is riding uphill. And what is that slap about? Are they WWF pros who’ve accidentally ended up racing the Tour? And is the film set in the 2000s? I swear those are Astana and ONCE kits (which is ironic because ONCE essentially became Astana). And why are all the bike frames just plain black or white? And why does everyone look slightly animated, like it’s a game of Pro Cycling Manager?

So many questions…

If you watched yesterday’s Tour route presentations and thought, ‘yeah, the six stages in Britain are all well and good, but I fancy crossing the Channel too’, you’re in luck, because our very own VecchioJo is on hand with some typically offbeat travel advice.

And according to Jo, you should forget the Alps, Pyrenees, Paris, or the Puy de Dôme. Because stage six of the men’s race from Vannes to Angers is really where it’s at. And you can ride to the stage along a 600km quiet cycle route, too:

 

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Anybody else up for it? We could get a group ride going from road.cc HQ…

The pre-sale for the Tour de France’s opening ceremony (that’s team presentation to you and me) in Edinburgh went live at noon – and our jaws hit the floor when we noticed some of the prices:

> Tickets for Edinburgh Tour de France opening ceremony on sale for much as £99, despite previous team presentations being free of charge

 

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Underground taxis, flying cars… all ‘solutions’ to urban problems that could be taken care of by the humble bicycle.

While we’re on the subject of those pesky, dangerous e-bikes in London – oh, hold on a second…

Well, at least they’re not completely blocking the bike lane, that’s a plus.

 

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