Golly DAY, bikes are expensive!!

And I'm not even talking about purchasing a whole bike -- just the accessories are horrendous!  I rode my bike to the new church and back for choir practice last night, about 5 miles each way.  I had Cecilia in the trailer on the way out but, fortunately, not on the way home.  (Daniel picked her and the trailer up on his way back from Mary's baseball game.)  Less than 2 miles from home, on campus, at 8:45 pm (so it was rapidly getting dark), my front tire went flat.  I toyed with the idea of riding it that way -- thinking it might be just a bit low -- but that lasted about three seconds, because then the bike was skidding every which way.  Sigh.  So I had to walk the last stretch, gently rolling a bike that was dead.  It was pretty much all dark when I got home.

Meanwhile, I've been nervous about not having a bike lock for me or the kids, so I already had a trip planned to the bike shop for those.  And Daniel needed a leg clip to keep his jeans from getting caught in the chain.  And I've been worrying about us being caught out late -- Daniel from work, me after choir, for example -- so I'd been thinking headlights would be a good idea.  And after last night I swore I wouldn't be caught out without a spare tube and my pump (need to figure out how to mount that on the bike...) which would also entail getting the tools to pry the tire off the rim.  So today I went to the bike shop (by car -- what else could I do?  At least I combined it with a trip to the Y store to drop off TONS of stuff -- I couldn't pull a filing cabinet on my bike anyway) and bought all of the aforementioned stuff, plus a new tire because mine was dry-rotting, which was part of the reason it went flat so cheerfully last night.  Now I am TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS poorer!!!  I told the guy at the bike shop that for that I could get a new bike.  I have to keep in mind that this was supplies for FOUR bikes, but Daniel and I will have to ride a combined 900 miles to make up that amount in gas expenditures.  Just the tire, tube, and spare tube were a tank of gas.  Oh, and this was after having replaced the other tire a couple of weeks ago.  Sigh.

I felt like I really earned my stripes as an alternative-transportation-taker yesterday.  I biked ten+ miles (including the trip to the eye doctor) and walked about two.  After dark.  Good thing this is a safe town.