There are lots of tips Parade has heard and seen in action before, like putting adhesive eyes from a craft store on the back of a helmet.

Cable ties are another popular helmet addition.

But Parade has seen one Bathurst cyclist take things a little further.

She saw him riding through the CBD with a helmet adorned with not only the cable ties, of which there were way too many to count, but a series of flashing lights as well.

Parade can't guarantee they're purely for the purpose of scaring magpies, because the lights might only be there to make sure motorists see him coming. 

However, the lights might be enough to make a magpie think twice about swooping.

PARADE’S significant other, who works down the road from Bathurst, rang on Wednesday with some interesting news.

“It’s going to be six degrees in Orange on Friday,” she reported, in a tone of voice somewhere between amazed and outraged.

Parade’s significant other, who moved to the district early this year, thought she had negotiated the worst of the Central Tablelands when winter ended, but her reaction on Wednesday showed that she didn’t realise getting through winter was just the start of it.

It's when the rest of the country is comfortably ensconced in spring and the Tablelands are still throwing up single figure days that the real test begins. 

“Yeah, six degrees in late September doesn’t sound that unusual,” Parade told her. “It is only the first month of spring, after all.”

To say she wasn’t pleased with this reaction would be an understatement, but Parade thinks there is no use mollycoddling her.

There will be plenty more bleak days to come – like when she has to pull a jumper on in early February or when one of her tomato plants gets frost damage in the days leading up to the Melbourne Cup. 

It builds resilience, if nothing else.