always traveling...

Same here. Having a bike was my first taste of traveling just for the sake of going somewhere. I rode my bike all over Brooklyn, NY, where I grew up. Half the time I didn't even have a destination. I just wanted to get out and explore. That feeling has never left me.

Its hard to imagine riding a bike around Brooklyn, but then the parts of Brooklyn that I know are only the very congested parts close to Manhattan. I always forget that's a very small part of Brooklyn.

When I was a kid we rode for miles and miles, at a time when the main roads were completely inadequate and quite dangerous. In those days Atlantic Blvd, the road we had to ride for about 2 miles to get out of the neighborhood and anywhere else, hadn't been rebuilt in probably 40 years, was 4 narrow lanes with no shoulders, no sidewalks, and traffic moving way too fast. Its amazing more of us weren't killed.

Palm Springs has excellent and very well protected bike paths, so I bought a lower end but quality bike (Trek) which cost $400 but works very smoothly. The gears aren't really a problem, but then I don't have to shift much since the area's relatively flat. I don't want to have to worry about the camera in a basket, so I take my older small point-and-shoot when riding it.