Former Foreign Secretary James Cleverly has told how he jumped on a Lime bike after getting caught in traffic in London as he headed to do a live morning media round.
Mr Cleverly was one of four contenders to get through on Tuesday to the third round of the contest to succeed Rishi Sunak as Tory leader.
But he found himself in a different type of race after traffic snarl-ups delayed him getting to Westminster.
Asked by Sky presenter Kay Burley how he had got to the studio, he said: “As you know I got stuck in traffic so I had to jump on a Lime bike.”
He quipped: “Other bicycle hire firms are available but I did the last bit of the trip on a bicycle.”
Asked why he did not get more supporters in the leadership contest in the second round on Tuesday, than the 21 in the first round, he said: “The message that I was getting was that people were confident I would get through to the final four.
“I now intend to take the message that I’ve been promoting around the country and to my fellow MPs to party conference, then get to the final two, and ultimately win this competition to lead the party.”
Ex-Cabinet minister Mel Stride was knocked out of the contest in its second round.
He failed to make the cut as the contest was narrowed down to four candidates on Tuesday evening.
Votes for the five candidates who had made it through the second round
33 - Former immigration minister Robert Jenrick
28 - Ex-Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch
21 - Ex-Home Secretary James Cleverly
21 - Tom Tugendhat
16 - Former Work and Pensions Secretary Mr Stride
The result means the four with the highest number of votes go through to the next stage of the race where the contenders will take part in a series of events at the Tory annual rally in Birmingham which starts at the end of the month.
They will be tested on their abilities to give powerful speeches, to face questions, and to set out policies and a vision for Britain.
Conservative MPs will then stage more votes on October 9 and 10 to draw up a shortlist of two candidates to be put to party members.
The ballot of Party members will be conducted via secure online voting.
It will close at 5pm on Thursday October 31, with the result being announced on Saturday November 2.
Only members who have been a member for 90 days or more prior to the ballot closing, and have been an active member at the time of the nominations for candidates opening, will be eligible to vote.
In the first round of voting, Mr Jenrick picked up 28 votes ahead of Ms Badenoch on 22, Mr Cleverly on 21, Mr Tugendhat on 17 and Mr Stride on 16.
