Tip 77: Rock helmet hair

Half horizontal, half vertical, unpredictable and very sweaty, helmet hair is so desirable because it is a direct metaphor for sex.

BONUS TIP:  When Garnier drop their new "Stackhat" range of styling products this spring, everyone will have the look. Get it before the trend spreads and the backlash begins.

Tip 70: Register your dissatisfaction with the local bike-share scheme

 
Why not take a bike?
Because the law says I need a helmet, and I don't #@%&ing keep one in my top pocket!

BONUS TIP: Urban Riding Tips does not condone destruction, Melbourne. Contact your local MP, or more effectively - just keep not using them.  Something's gotta give.

Tip 56: iPhone and ride

When the phone pings in the pocket of your Rapha shants, you can try to let it sit.
But the amount of time that messages sits unread, the more its potential importance grows. 
A callback on that audition?
An article published in that zine?
A game of dungeons and dragons about to start?
While you've got your phone out, well, you could easily check your tweets on this long straight stretch.  And look, your nemesis has taken their turn in Words With Friends.

BONUS TIP: Of course, you are aware of the tremendous risk inherent in doing this:  You could drop your phone on the road and end up with spider-web screen. 

Tip 46: Panniers

Get the leather ones with tassels. Wear spurs and a large-brimmed hat that can trail behind you when you go fast.
Refer to your bike as a steed, chew tobacco and carry a revolver. Cars won't mess with you. No-one will.

BONUS TIP: Ride a tall bike, and measure its height in "hands". Refer to the guys you ride with as a posse. Start a brawl in a saloon. Fill your panniers with beef jerky. Yee-hah!

Tip 36: Obsess over your route.

Optimise Y

where Y 

= a*(smooth surfaces + efficient hypotenuses)

+

 b*(bikepaths)*(sneaky shortcuts)

- 

c*(drunk pedestrians + slippery tramtracks)

+ 

d*(long fast downhills / steep sweaty uphills)

-

e*(taxis + cops + beer can-throwing SUV drivers + holier-than-thou vehicular cyclists)^2

+ 

f*(people to admire your style / avoiding that cafe where the cute waitress saw you fall off that time) 

-

h*(Red lights + puddles)

BONUS TIP: If maths is not your thing:  Optimal route-finding is a personal expression of the discourse between the cultural, politico-infrastructural and the physical. Discuss.

Tip 35: Pop a yoghurt

When that taxi changes lane and forces you into the gutter, your lunch, prepared this morning before dawn and stowed in your back basket, suffers from the rumbles of the cobbles.

Your apple bruises, your banana splits and your yoghurt explodes like Mt Vesuvius, spreading through your neatly folded work-wear, a fact to which you are none the wiser as you give the taxi driver a complete sign language alphabet full of gesticulations.

BONUS TIP: You will be cranky from having no lunch and are sporting dubious proteiny stains on your clothes. It goes without saying - avoid your boss.

Tip 32: See some colleagues naked

Capitalism's hidden heart is a reliance on humans' love for one another.

It is non-market transactions, internal to the firm, that dominate the economy.

This is where cycling fits into capitalism's cunning plan. When you get a daily eyeful of your colleagues' junk in the change rooms at work, a certain bond is forged. 

As it revulses, it creates a lattice of understanding and teamwork that strengthens the corporate behemoths.

BONUS TIP: When getting dressed, for the love of god, put your underpants on first. Why fuss over your windsor knot before you've even clad your nuts?

Tip 30: Change how you carry your lock

That U-lock holster that seemed so "deck" on that cycling website turned out to be a big pile of shit.  That frame mount broke. And the spinal bruising from carrying it in the crumpler is getting passe.
I have a brilliant idea - I'll just hang it off the handlebars!

BONUS TIP: If you haven't considered buying a gold bike chain lock and wearing it like Mr T, you haven't been riding long enough yet, fool.

Tip 16: Commando at work

Commuting logistics are hard. It involve a perplexing garment management challenge that would send super-computers convulsing into a blue screen of death.
The humble cycling brain must relinquish the quest for perfection and be satisfied with a better than average chance of arriving at work and finding a clean ironed shirt in the locker.
Forgive the addled pedaller, also trying to remember phone, wallet, keys, pass, a spare tube and lunch.  If the sweaty pair of cotton Bonds you wore on the ride in are the only undies you have, then be decisive.
Making a presentation at the morning meeting without jocks is as close a thrill as many will get to an illicit workplace affair.

Bonus tip: Check your fly.