Cycling

The bank holiday turned out to be a hot one, not least in the takeover arena. First, Shire Pharmaceutical accepted a £46 billion offer from Takeda of Japan — though the stock market did not seem wholly convinced that the deal will proceed. If it does, should we care? Shire is a FTSE100 company that began in the UK and ended up stateless. As a start-up in Basingstoke in 1986, it made calcium-based treatments for osteoporosis; since then it has grown by acquisition to become ‘the world’s leading global biotechnology company focused on serving patients with rare diseases’. In 2008, when it was the UK’s third biggest drug manufacturer, Shire

‘You’ve got your essay on your back, then?’ said the stable yard owner as I headed out with Darcy on our morning hack. I have taken to wearing a hi-visibility vest even though I swore I would never join the Day-Glo brigade: large women on fat cobs plodding very slowly down the road in so much protective gear they look like they are going to fight the Taliban, not walk round the woods slower than a snail. I swore I would never make myself look like them. I have ridden blithely along the country lanes of Surrey to reach the common for years and I have never had a problem

Could there be a better metaphor for the corruption that now pervades all top-level sport than the use of motors in professional cycling? It’s so perfectly shameless. If you’re going to cheat by finding illicit ways in which to enhance your performance, as virtually all sportspeople today are forced to do (we’ll come back to that), why mess about with half-measures? Find a motor and strap it on. Undying glory and unimaginable wealth are just the other side of that mountain. Open that throttle, baby! In December last year, Istvan ‘Stefano’ Varjas, a Hungarian engineer who claims to have invented the technology necessary to conceal a near-silent engine in a

Home Sir Michael Fallon, the Defence Secretary, said that Britain would oppose attempts to create an EU army, as it would ‘undermine’ Nato. Forecasts for British economic growth in 2016 collated by the Treasury were revised from 1.5 to 1.8 per cent, the level expected in June, before the EU referendum. Mathias Döpfner, the chief executive of Axel Springer, said that leaving the European Union would make Britain ‘better off than continental Europe’ within five years. Scotland began importing shale gas from the United States. Fourteen candidates are to stand in the by-election at Witney on October 20 to replace David Cameron as MP, including one from the Bus-Pass Elvis

One real giant who is towering over a previously tainted sport is the extraordinary Chris Froome, whose victory in the Tour de France was as inevitable as a pair of Theresa May kitten heels. This is Froome’s third Tour victory, and a colossal achievement. He’s been undervalued, perhaps because he looks like a spindly seven-stone weakling who is about to get sand kicked in his face. But he is as tough as tugboats. As one commentator recently observed, he now not only dominates the Tour as a rider but he bosses it as a person too. Froome is indeed slightly built, even for a cyclist, and is very accommodating with

On Saturday at Mont St Michel, the 103rd edition of the Tour de France begins, and the favourite to win is again British. As a long-term cycling fan, even typing those words gives me a frisson. When I started watching in the 1980s there were few British riders to cheer on — and none challenging for overall victory. Bradley Wiggins became the first Briton to win in 2012. He was followed by Chris Froome in 2013 and 2015. The French haven’t won since 1985. Britain is now a cycling superpower and cycling has become a popular sport. So why aren’t I celebrating? The problem is the lingering doubt that none

Michel is one of those Frenchmen one encounters now and again whose shining saintliness is beyond rational understanding. This great bear of a man, with heavy silver rings on his fingers and thumbs, is always cheerful, always kind, always puts others before himself. Whenever he speaks with me, it is always under the pathetic delusion that he might learn something from me that he did not already know. The only thing that makes him in any way contemptuous is my pointing out his goodness to him. Michel was a teacher. For many years, he taught English at a private school in Somerset. Now retired to his native Provence, he has

Spring is here and the air is alive with the sound of sweaty manmade materials rubbing together, as middle-aged cyclists fill every road, dressed head to toe in Lycra. They whizz along, jumping red lights, weaving in and out of the path of trucks, screaming at pedestrians and taxi drivers; barely evading death three times a morning. Lycra isn’t just a fabric; it’s a state of mind. At work, these often portly, always angry, red-faced individuals might be mild-mannered middle managers who work in marketing. But in their cycling kit they are superheroes who happen to swear a lot. The double Olympic champion Laura Trott was once asked to help

Asked to name Britain’s greatest living industrial designer, most people might cite Sir Jony Ive of Apple or Sir James Dyson of the bagless vacuum cleaner. I’d certainly shortlist Ive, but I traded in my unreliable Dyson for a brutally efficient German machine called a Sebo and I’ve always thought Sir James was overhyped. I might also mention Dumfries-born Ian Callum, the director of design for Jaguar cars responsible for the sleek F-Type. But surely the top prize must go to Andrew Ritchie, the former landscape gardener whose one perfect product, the Brompton folding bicycle, first sketched in his South Kensington flat 40 years ago, has never been bettered or

I have never met an Aussie I didn’t like, but, crikey, their sporting indefatigability is exhausting. Don’t they ever give up? In the past few days, they have pulled one out of the bag against the Springboks in the southern hemisphere Rugby Championship when they looked buried; trailing 20—17 with time up, they turned down a penalty kick and went for the win with an 82nd-minute try. Their Davis Cup tennis boys came from 2—0 down to beat Kazakhstan, with Lleyton Hewitt hauling his weary muscles through the motions once more. Afterwards Hewitt said, ‘I love the back-against-the-wall situation. This is what dreams are made of.’ Now they face Britain,

You have to wonder about the future of the Conservative party when you hear stories like this, from the Birmingham Post: ‘Councillor Deirdre Alden (Con, Edgbaston) said she was concerned that such a large amount of effort and investment was being spent on a mode of transport predominantly used by young men. “The vast majority of cyclists on our roads are young, white men,” she said. She added that, while there were exceptions, “most elderly people are not going to cycle, and it would be dangerous for them to start on our streets now”. The councillor said disabled people did not benefit from cycling and that “women of any ethnic