American companies offer over-sized car-seats, coffins, mops on sticks to reach under fat flaps, and 'lingerie for larger ladies' but these specialists in 'bariatric' products don't offer products to burn off the blubber. Until, that is, SuperSizedCycles.com, "bikes for big riders."

Round Up USA, the 'small wheel and folder bike fest', is now in its fourth year. To be staged June 9-11th in Philadelphia, Round Up is part bike rally, part trade show, and part folder geek-fest. Cycling writer John Schubert calls it a "Woodstock for cool bikes."

In the current mag there's a full-page article on the recent Colibi/Coliped CEN symposium held in Brussels. There weasn't enough room in the mag for Uwe Weissflog's full report so here it is in its extended form.

And girls, we suppose. The first bike has been custom built. Future newspaper delivery bikes will be mass produced. The bikes do not need cardboard shrouds...

Speaking from France on a Cofidis training camp, Olympic champion Bradley Wiggins has voiced his support for the victims and families of the four club cyclists killed in Wales last weekend. This was believed to be Britain's worst cycling tragedy for 40+ years.

Starring George Clooney, Matt Damon, and William Hurt, the new Warner Bros film 'Syriana' is a complex thriller set against the backdrop of a world thirsty for oil, and with politicians and oil producers and terrorists eager to get their slice of the action. The film's production company has set up a campaigning website to further explore the West's crippling dependence on oil. The Peak Oil concept is therefore going mainstream and the first point in a 'reduce your oil use' action plan is to cycle instead of drive.

From January 16th, folding bicycles will be allowed on peak-time train journeys on the Southern Railways network but 'ordinary cycles' will be banned, says Southern's website. Presumably Southern means 'standard' road bikes and MTBs and only the pedantic would argue that the phrase 'ordinary cycle' actually refers to the bicycles popularly known as 'Penny farthings'.

Lord Davies of Oldham, the deputy chief whip in the House of Lords and a former president of the Royal Society of the Prevention of Accidents, this week rebutted an amendment to the Road Safety Bill calling for compulsory helmets for children under 16. Lord Davies said the "compulsory use of helmets might reduce cycling, which would be a loss to the nation."

The Outdoor Industries Association is staging its last GO Outdoors show this weekend. There's been a Harrogate trade show in the autumn since the 1960s but "to meet the changing buying patterns of brands and retailers" next year the show becomes outdoorpreview and will be held in July.

That's the title of an EP released by Katie Melua today. However, according to a press release from an Irish market research company, "China's electric bike production tops 6.5 million." Who's more accurate, the singer or the market research company?