Does the way you ride say what sort of employee you'd be? Lucy Kellaway thinks it might.

“I was overtaken by a man in a black coat with no helmet, no lights, and listening to music through headphones."

So what is her point? What did he do wrong exactly except ride his bike in a manner that didn't appeal to her? Was it actually night time, in which case not having lights would seem to be his only transgression. Personally I would have worn a helmet but that's my own choice.

If only Jon Snow hadn'd said such nonsense the other day, we could come up with a theory about good journalists being cyclists and bad ones (like Petronella Moir) being non-cyclists. Damn.

Maybe we need an article on how to track stand - it isn't difficult and once people realise how easy it is then it wouldn't be showing off would it?

The article did go some way to separate "all cyclists" myth. The study could be very revealing both for cyclists and drivers.
Trouser leg/cycle clips is open to interpretation. I ride a bike with chain guards but if I have to ride one without, I'll roll mine up too.
Until I moved to London from NL, I'd barely set foot in a bike shop - in Holland, I bought my bikes from an old bloke who reconditioned them, rode them into the ground for a year and bought a "new" one. It was only when I moved to London, I started using bike shops, I even went and worked in one!
It comes down to walk a mile in my shoes. You have to know much more about a person to properly analyse how and why the ride the way they do.

Flip it the other way...
I'd like to be driven round by a potential boss and see how they behave at the wheel of a car before deciding if I want to work for them.

On stereotypes: the other day I was walking through London when I spotted two very crusty, tattooed messengers on those fixies with sawn-off bars, both were obediently waiting for a red to go green. As they waited, an obviously middle-class girl on Brompton blithely rode past them through the red lights.

Earlier this morning I was crossing a road, green man flashing, and was nearly hit by another lady, on a Boris bike, who had cycled the wrong way down a 1-way street and was turning into the road I was crossing.

Two sensible messengers, two stupid women, proving you just can't stereotype any kind of rider.

I hate that trackstanding is showing off, I just find it convenient, don't judge me!

I commute in Northern Ireland, and have the joy of being able to travel to work either traffic free & slightly off road via a well maintained Coastal Path 16.5 miles ( MTB or Cyclocross required ) or by road 14.5 miles. I frequently vary which route & which bike I take to & from work, sometimes using single speed. My dress sense will change depending which bike / route im using, so wee bit of a generalisation to try and pigeon hole people by what they are riding or wearing, but none the less a nice article, providing a bit of fun in the morning!

should a financial times journalist who is shocked to discover that city bankers might not be the epitome of responsible behaviour really be in that job at all?

I've tried every kind of trouser clip and they are all rubbish, so the assumption that the leg roller is forgetful is nonsense

also track-standing is a safety thing: if you have both feet on the pedals, clipped in, you make a faster getaway which is better when there are cars also accelerating behind you

Just being on a bike and commuting in London says a lot about you. One, you don't like other people (hence avoiding the tube). Two, you don't believe in myths (cycling in London is dangerous), Three, you value money (have you seen Tube prices?) Four, you value time (how long does it take on public transport? And so on...

I'm just impressed that banker chap even got on his bike the morning after what was no doubt a very late one in Spearmint Rhino drinking Dom Perignon & talking absolute bollocks at anyone in earshot while rubbing his nose a lot.

Well surely then we could also tell a lot about people from the way they drive. Are they aware/considerate of other road users? Are they making progress or just dodging around achieving nothing and annoying/scaring others (manager)? Or whether they use the middle urinal from an empty group of 3 (sociopath)?

I'm guessing the bank she mentioned was Goldman Sachs, because the laws of the land really don't apply to them.

A little more science and it would be worth considering.

What people call “stereotypes” are what scientists call “empirical generalisations,” and they are the foundation of scientific theory. That’s what scientists do, and we plebs; we make generalisations. Many stereotypes are empirical generalisations with a statistical basis and thus on average tend to be true. If they are not true, they wouldn’t be stereotypes. The only problem with stereotypes and empirical generalisations is that they are not always true for all individual cases. They are generalisations, not invariant laws. There are always individual exceptions to stereotypes and empirical generalisations. The danger lies in applying the empirical generalisations to individual cases, which may or may not be exceptions. But these individual exceptions do not invalidate the generalisations.

Could be really interesting it is was flushed out slightly and some preconceptions were dropped

And the rubbish articles continue it seems.

The man in the black coat heading into the bank's carpark was as likely to be the Latvian odd job man as some rich banker. More likely in fact.

It really doesn't do to apply stereotypes based on dress. Hang around a Ferrari garage to find that one out.

I guess the piece is just a bit of fun, but thinking about it, you probably can tell a fare bit about someone as an employee from the way they ride.

And there attitude to work. crap bike, big muscular legs, v expensive bike, flabby sparrow legs...

I think this would need far more study before being accepted as anything close to fact. For example: I behave completely differently in a competitive environment than I do out on the road on a Sunday morning, which Ms Kellaway clearly hasn't taken into account. Interesting, but needs more research...

Betteridge's law of headlines certainly applies here...