Tip 122: Collide with your mate

Friend, lover, team-mate or mother, you think you're on a wavelength but you're not.
You might be in the middle of a conversation about the European Central Bank, or an excellent new cat video when suddenly:

You make a turn it was obvious you both should take; or
They make a turn without warning.

All of a sudden knees are touching, brake levers are scraping along knuckles, someone is squealing like a macaque and if one of you doesn't hit the ground soon, you both will.

BONUS TIP: The remainder of the ride will feel like an 800 mile epic through a landscape of frigid silence, punctuated with sightseeing stops at the sulphuric geysers of fault and blame.

Tip 109: The Farmers' Market Pumpkin Emergency

Low-milage vegetables sing a siren song to the inner-urban 30-plus hipster - much like the bottom shelf of the boxed wine section cajoled their early-20s selves.
Arriving by car is a shameful act of bourgeosieism, even if it is a Subaru with cyclocross stickers / high-credibility carbon fibre product perched on it. Go by two wheels.
Remember this, however: root vegetables are peril.  Load a bunch of local carrots, spuds and a biodynamic pumpkin into your pannier, and when you cross the Elizabeth St tram tracks you're gonna hear a noise that means you've popped a screw out of your rear rack and snapped a swag of spokes.

BONUS TIP: Tweet the following: "Attack of the killer potatoes! locavorism ruined my bike!  :| "
Then hit the net to buy replacement components made in Taiwan, branded in New York, packaged in plastic and shipped by air. You don't need to tweet that.

Tip 100: Get in the inside lane

Much like smoking cured banana peels, you have no idea if this is legal, but sometimes you have to do it anyway.
When traffic in the outside lane is an MC Escher clusterfuck of blundering taxis, death-crazed pedestrians and a learner driver ruining a reverse park, you crave the clean free asphalt of the inside lane.
You headcheck and go.  It's so nice! It's so familiar! But sneakily its dangerous and different.  You're out of your element. Traffic is passing you on the wrong side. Yipes. Like Marty McFly in the Back to the Future trilogy,  you've got to get back home, and you just need the right amount of speed to get you there.

BONUS TIP: The mad professor that will arrive in the nick of time save you from being crushed by a head-check-hating, SUV-piloting mother-of-two is in this case not Doc Emmett played by Christopher Lloyd.
It is you, and the conveniently timed burst of lightning that will power you home is gonna have to come out of those legs.

Tip 89: Swallow a fly

Good vegans ride round with their mouths shut, but the rest are in danger of swallowing a fly at some point. 
When it happens - gag, cough, spit - remember the green goo in the middle of a fly is 100 per cent protein. If you forgot to pack your energy bars, scooping up a juicy blowfly could power you up the next hill.

BONUS TIP: Try not to get obsessed with finding a spider to swallow next. Who knows where that might end.  

Tip 83: Spit on yourself

The biology of saliva, phlegm and snot is clear to cyclists: Cycling makes them happen. (Tips et al, Nature, Vol 12, pp.1264-1289, 2011)
The physics are a whole nother matter. Generations of cyclists remain mystified by why - when you spit out into all that fast moving air - it is so rarely whisked away, and so often splattered all over you.

BONUS TIP: The sociology of phlegm splatter could be a whole journal.
When you stop to buy coffee and don't know you have spit all over you, it's ok. Post-ride, when you realise you have been riding for team snot-rocket, emotion surges through you.

Tip 80: Ride sauced

At .05: Consider the application of drink driving statutes to two- wheeled vehicles.
At .10: Consider riding with no hands and/or bunny hopping road furniture for lols.
At .15: Consider riding with one eye closed, so there are no longer two of every car you pass.
At .20: Consider whether, if the pros can ride and eat without stopping; you might be able to ride and spew.
At .25: consider how impressive it would be if you rode home nude, like Mario Cipollini.

BONUS TIP: UBIs - or unidentified beer injuries - are the police, judge and eventually the 12-step program for the habitually pissy cyclist.

Tip 79: Veer into a parked car

Cycling affords a tremendous way to see your city and it would be a shame not to stop and smell the roses.
If you peer off into the distance long enough, however, you will cease to hold your line.  Perfectly stationary objects will jump out at you, and you will find the end of your handlebar has become irredeemably tangled with a parked car.

BONUS TIP: Hold your head high, as though mortifying embarrassment is as preposterous a concept as Scientology, put the car's wing mirror back in place and ride on.

Tip 78: Get merged on.

In the big game of Quidditch that is urban cycling, Malfoy-esque motorists throw Harry Potter invisibility cloaks onto anything that doesn't have four wheels.
You might be the nimblest Seeker Hogwarts has ever seen, but when those big metal beaters we call cars unexpectedly join you in your lane, you will consider hopping off your broomstick.

BONUS TIP: When you catch the death-eating car driver at the next intersection, let loose with
a few of your most powerful curses.

Tip 74: Get stupid

Riding a bike can be just like drinking liquor.
You feel amazing, right up until you do something you regret. Something you would never do.
A dangerous affair involving a  police car, a pile of traffic cones and a girl you just met while lying in the gutter. Something that makes you wake up with a dry mouth, a sick feeling and a hungry guilt monster gnawing at your viscera.

BONUS TIP: Make some pledges you'll never be able to keep:
"I'll never go that fast again."
"I'm gonna wear a helmet, every time."
"I think it's time for a high visibility vest."

Tip 72 : Stand for speed bumps

The genetics of the human race are imperilled.
iPhones, powerlines and those glow in the dark stars nine-year-old you stuck all over your bedroom have filled our living environment with enough radiation to have us all riding recumbents within a generation.
You're not going to wear lead undies, but there is one thing you can do to preserve the integrity of your gametes: protect them from impact by standing for speed bumps. 
This is especially true if you prefer boxer shorts or go commando.

BONUS TIP: Grab some mad air as you go over the speed bump, and if there are any suitable parties observing, you may just increase your chances of passing on those genes.

Tip 69: Take your bike on a train

You'll be popular as a subway rat - and twice as nervous - as you ride the escalator and try not to let your big steel frame run down the masses.
Squeeze into the carriage and manouevre to that one spot where you're not blocking either door, then hold onto the ceiling with your outstretched fingertips.
BONUS TIP: Keep your helmet on until you get to your station. Those dirty glares could turn to violence any moment.

Tip 67: Fall off for no apparent reason.

One fine day, absolutely nothing will be enough to topple you off that still-uncomfortable perch on the Brooks you paid so much for.  As your carbon triangles skitter away across the black-top like a shuffle on a shuffleboard, you'll be lying on your back seeking perpetrators.  Was it the gentle zephyr, the most peripheral pedestrian, or a half-stoned koala in a near-by gum tree?

BONUS TIP: Don't bother people with this non-story. Falling off your bike is not a magic trick and the lack of explanation will not intrigue.  If you don't concoct a big fat lie full of cause and effect, the narrative vacuum will fill up fast with derision.

Tip 51: Tangle with the law

You'll be neat and tidy as a pin,
helmet strap snug beneath your chin.
Cruising along the bicycle lane,
reflecting on Miguel Indurain.
When out of traffic shall arrive,
A police car to make you swerve and dive.
they'll clip your wheel, sirens wailing,
while you go flying with limbs flailing.

BONUS TIP: Pick yourself up, red and sore
Don't feel frightened to reproach the law.