As regular readers of this blog will have realised, those who cycle are rarely short of strong opinions. And opinions don’t come much stronger, and certainly not more definitive, than The Rules.

Many of you might already know the venerable website, now collated into a book with more thorough explanations for each mandate, hence this post. For those who don’t, it’s a collection of diktats on two-wheeled matters ranging from etiquette to cycle fashion, issued by a shadowy and self-appointed collective known as the Velominati, whose work cleverly straddles the line between good sense and deliberately absurd self-importance and pedantic obsession.

The rules themselves, currently stretching to 95, come from a definitively road cycling perspective, and some are thus aimed at preserving the sanctity of that pursuit (rule 34: “Mountain bike shoes and pedals have their place. On a mountain bike.”), but others are universal.

Perhaps the most famous is rule five which, in his preface to the new book, my colleague William Fotheringham recounts citing to his own daughter when she expressed reluctance to play in the snow: “Harden the fuck up”. I can remember such similarly sage advice delivered my way by a friend recently as I complained about tiredness on a long ride.

Similarly motivating, albeit more positively, is rule nine: “If you are out riding in bad weather it means you are a badass. Period.” (The Velominati are mainly Americans, as you can guess from the language). They have also adopted the US cyclist Greg Lemond’s famous maxim for rule 10: “It never gets easier, you just get faster.”

Another universal decree, number 12, has migrated into more common useage, the adage that the ideal number of bikes to own is n+1, where n is the number of bikes you currently own.

Personally, I think The Rules comes into its own with the minutiae of cycling fashion and conduct, the more specific and finicky the better. As with rule 37, which states that the arms of cycling eyewear should always be placed over helmet straps, never under, explaining: “This is for various reasons that may or may not matter; it’s just the way it is.” At least rule 14 – shorts should always be black – is more self-explanatory (as the book points out, white shorts are effectively transparent when wet).

I’m also a fan of rule 89, decreeing that when referring to names of riders, races or equipment you should do so in the appropriate language and accent, with the helpful caveat that for Belgian names you can use either the Flemish or Wallonian pronunciation.

All this obsessing and dictating is, of course, utterly ridiculous, and The Rules are to a great extent a deliberate parody of the peculiar seriousness with which some road cycling fans treat their chosen field.

Nonetheless, for all that I might brazenly flout some rules – yes, that’s a triple chainset on my road bike; my post-ride coffee is a latte, not the approved espresso or macchiato – I cannot help nodding sagely at a good percentage of the advice.

As anyone who’s ventured into east London recently would surely agree, rule 22 (no cycling caps off the bike) should, ideally, be incorporated into criminal law. As an aside, I recently encountered two neighbours having a heated discussion of said rule after one was seen heading, post-ride to a local supermarket, still in his cap. “I was just popping down for a pasty – I was starving,” was the slightly whimpering eventual excuse.

Who, also, could dispute the wisdom of rule 25 (“The bikes on top of your car should be worth more than the car”)?

There is, additionally, some eminently sensible advice, for example the decrees to support your local bike shop, to hold a predictable line on the road, and take your turn at the front of a group.

I’m not sufficiently obsessed with road cycling to add my own suggestions, but if you stretch the idea to, say, bike commuting there’s some I could add. For example: have some mudguards if it’s raining – no one likes being splashed with others' cast-off muddy water. And if you’re overtaken by a cyclist don’t repeatedly squeeze past again at every susequent red light, to sit just ahead and in the way.

Your own ideas?