Dearie gracious me.

I'm calling it, the cycling revolution has finally jumped the shark.

I work in the mainstream meadia, so I know only too well how easily someone's dumb idea translates from some lightbulb moment in a news conference to something uninformed and shallow and useless with a photo on page seven. Feast your eyes on this junk, it's what happens when the Canberra Times unleashes its "Lifestyle and Entertainment Reporter" on recreational cycling.

If you are a woman and would like to find a husband, then you should invest in some Lycra, preferably with a splash of neon to be on trend for summer, and sensible underwear which doesn't give you a VPL [visible panty line], according to co-owner of The Cyclery, Jayson Clarke.

Now I'm one of those old school hacks who thinks that "lifestyle and entertainment reporters" aren't real journalists, but apparently it has been decided that we're going to address the crisis in the newspaper industry by giving up on hard news and feeding people lightweight garbage like this.

The same colour jersey and shorts must be worn, or at least look like they should be worn together. "You don't drive a Mercedes while wearing a BMW shirt, so when it comes to your outfit, wearing a different brand or kind of jersey to your shorts is a no-no," Clarke added.

There is, of course, that the owners of the bike shop were having a huge laugh at her expense, but nonetheless, what bemuses me is this: what service is this article to readers who might be thinking of buying a bike? 

There are two types of people who have a $16,000 road racing bike as recommended in this piece. There's the elite athlete (who doesn't pay for the bike anyway, and the clueless whacker with too much money. I wonder which category Jenna Clarke falls into? For that money, you could buy four or five fine superb bikes, any one of which might stand a chance of having more than one use: riding at top speed on smooth roads in fine weather during the day with a load no more demanding than a half full waterbottle. (Don't get me started on the fact most of the people who ride these type of bikes in fact don't race and have lamentable bike handling skills and very poor road manners.)

There's a hint in there too about how the many in the cycling industry will forever be at the mercy of boom and bust. If you think recommending a $16,000 bike to a novice rider is going to bring people rushing to your door, maybe you don't deserve to be in business. When cycling is no longer "the new golf" I can see a lot of these sort of bike shops going broke.

Ah, what the hell, I'm going for a ride. In my shorts and T-shirt on my old steel bike. Maybe I'm just not serious about cycling.

3659km so far this year. 

But did he get some miles in?

Like most right-minded people I regard exercise bikes - along with treadmills - as signs of latent deviency. As usual, it turns out that I'm right. Full points to the bloke for quick thinking though:

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A gang stripped a South African man before supergluing him to an exercise bicycle while they ransacked his house, according to a report Thursday.

SAPA news agency said the attackers, dressed in suits, hijacked a man in his 50s and forced him at gunpoint to take them to his home in Johannesburg.

"The victim was then forced to strip, after which he was superglued to the seat of an exercise bicycle, his hands were superglued, as were his feet and then his mouth was superglued shut," SAPA quoted Mark Stokoe, a spokesman for emergency services Netcare 911, as saying.

The man was rescued about three hours later when his partner arrived home, SAPA said.

Now I'm no detective, but it sounds to me like his girlfriend got home early and he had to reach for the old "Bad Men Broke In, Made Me Do This At Gunpoint, Then Ran Away Leaving No Trace Except A Very Rude Movie In The DVD Player" excuse. We've all used that one before. I'll bet they made him get drunk too. As an excuse it's versatile and so very plausible, but you can only use it the once.

2,725km so far this year.