"I've got a bike. You can ride it if you like. It's got a basket, a bell that rings and things to make it look good." -Syd

So we have been doing a lot of biking this summer. We have tried to have only two car days during the week: Wednesday and Sunday. We end up doing quite a lot of biking. The boys have had swim lessons Monday through Thursday for the past three weeks as well as baseball Tuesday and Thursdays. I have made two grocery store trips. (I use the kids trailer, the one they ride in, two carry the groceries.) Last week, we rode to the cemetery and had a picnic, which was about 14 miles round trip. The next two days we put about the same mileage on our bikes with equivalent trips. Believe it or not, we feel a lot better! Tasha and I usually talk a lot during our trips and Grand Forks is such a beautiful town to ride your bike through, generally. Lately, we have been talking about taking some long distance trips maybe next summer. I teach in a school out of town but worked out a bike route using Bike Route Toaster. It ended up being about 14 miles so I am going to try to commute out to school maybe. Last night I went for a bike ride that was 14 miles and it took me 40 minutes. It usually take me twenty to drive out there. Should be interesting. Here are our bikes:
This is Tasha's bike. It is a Trek 850. I put the fenders and the bike rack on this summer. Also, she got a new pair of water bottle cages. It is a sweet bike. I love the old mountain bike frames. They are excellent for a road bike conversion which is what I have done with mine below.

This is my bike. It is a Specialized Rockhopper. It is very special to me, no pun intended. My sister bought this bike back in '94 or '95, I bet. It looked just like Tasha's bike. It had the mountain bike tires and the straight handlebars. She sold it to my big brother and he used it for awhile. Then he sold it back to her. Then I came along and bought it from her. Or else she gave it to me, I can't remember. I rode it around for awhile as a mountain bike. I even took a short sixty mile day trip on it with the original seat and tires and handlebars. I hurt afterwards but it was enjoyable. I then put road tires on it and also put on the drop bars with the brakes and bar end shifters. I also put on the bike rack and the new fenders this summer. This morning, I got a computer for it in the mail which I got for about twenty bucks on Amazon. The only thing else I need to do to this bike is to add a Brooks saddle and get a shorter stem to bring the handle bars in an inch or two. But I love this bike. I have had this bike completely apart at times. It runs so smooth and doesn't even make a sound except for the rubber on the road. This excerpt sounds like it was written by a sixth grader. Do you want to know why? There are a ba-jillion simple sentences written and hardly any compound or complex or compound complex sentences. It sounds funny, huh.

Here are a few videos. One of them I went to quite the risk of capturing. I meant to get more of the bike trailer and more of Tasha. Unfortunately, I ended up getting mostly my head. Sorry.