We bought our bikes today! Yeah! We also bought:

- a water bottle and cage for both
- a cargo rack over the rear wheels for each
- a kickstand for Sheri's bike
- a car rack

The car rack can attach in just a couple minutes to either the van or the sedan.

They make these neat bags for the cargo racks that have Velcro straps on the bottom that are designed to attach to the racks. The ones they had at the bike shop today had an insulated and water proof main compartment that you could put an ice pack and some sandwiches and sodas for lunch. It also had a few side pockets for keys, wallet, garage door opener, emergency tools, Chapstick, bandages, bandannas, sunglasses, etc. That was $50 and we will probably get one or two, we just want to look around and see what else is out there first.

We still need to buy a couple of locks, and flashing safety lights for dusk and nighttime riding. I am not sure about bike helmets. I will wait and see what percentage of other riders are wearing them on the trails. I think that they are more common and acceptable now than they were 10 years ago.

I also need to buy a tool with an Allen wrench for field adjustments. I found that my handle bar wasn't tightened all the way at the shop and need to stop back tomorrow and pick up a wrench.

We have miles and miles of bike trails in this area, but the maps of them available on the web are of very poor quality. I am thinking about strapping the GPS from work on the back when we ride certain trails for the first time and then making a map and posting it on the web in .pdf format.

There are a number of "Rails to Trails" paths around where they take abandoned railroad rights-of-way and convert them into bike paths. I want to give those a ride.