A helmet and a wig – perfect!

Matt Seaton: Dr Ian Walker, a traffic psychologist at Bath University, has looked at helmet use from a completely new angle: not the cyclist's psychology, but the motorist's.

Why I love the ‘fixie’

Matt Seaton: If you have never experienced riding a "fixie", it's hard to communicate adequately the almost transcendental pleasure of the sensation. Initiates of the art grow lyrical, even mystical, on the subject. On a fixed, you feel far more intimately "connected" to your bike.

Vive le Tour of Britain

Matt Seaton: As a participation sport, cycling is flourishing. A measure of the enthusiasm is that more than 1,500 people have volunteered to marshall the Tour of Britain.

It’s a shard life, cycling

Matt Seaton: On the whole, I've nothing against bike lanes. As long as I don't have to ride in them, unless they're useful and convenient to me, I tend to think that dedicated road space for cyclists is a good.

There’s gold in them thar hills

Matt Seaton: The lure of the hills is partly about the need for a physical challenge, partly also about the panoramic views they reward that effort with. But it is also a soul thing.

A hero worthy of the name

Matt Seaton: Despite the disgrace of Floyd Landis, we do still have a hero worthy of the name. Nicole Cooke, the winner of women's Tour de France.

Think before you drink and ride

Matt Seaton: It has emerged that Tour de France winner Floyd Landis was lucky not to have been breathalysed and test positive for alcohol as well.

Let the music play after all

Matt Seaton: I came out against iPod-listening because it cuts you off from fully being in the world. In retrospect, this argument strikes me as flaky and specious.

Why Bush is a role model to us all

Matt Seaton: Seeing George Bush going for a spin on his mountain bike while attending the G8 summit in St Petersburg almost made my heart warm to him.

Cyclists do it in stages

Matt Seaton: The beauty of 'cyclo-sportive' is that these challenges bridge the gap between recreational riding and cycle sport, between charity rides and full-on road racing.

Why drugs are still a scourge

Matt Seaton: "Pot Belge" sounds like something you might get after overindulging on Hoegaarden. Actually, it's a bit more potent than that.

Wheels on walls

Matt Seaton: Simple hooks are cheap, and fairly easy to put up - if you don't mind hoiking up the bikes yourself, that is.

Could your bike carry a pig?

Matt Seaton: The irony about the UK's bike revival is that roughly 60% of the new bicycles we buy (about 4.5m a year) are made in China - even while the Chinese are deserting theirs in droves.