Go Green and Ride a Bike

About the time gasoline hit $ 4.00 a gallon in early July, I decided that I would take up bike riding to get to work. I live in Gulfport, Ms. and the distance to work on the route I chose is about 3.5 miles one way.
The first decision was what kind of bike to purchase. I have neighbors who are avid bike riders and they advised me to check out a couple of the bicycle shops in town. The bicycles that they recommended were $385 and $500. Since I am nearing 61 and I didn't know if I would even like riding a bike to work, that was a little too much to pay. I researched bikes and found a bike sold by Wal-Mart for $108 which was all aluminum and had most of the features of the more expensive bikes. The bike is made by NEXT and is the AVALON model and it comes in men's and ladies' styles. This has turned out to be an excellent purchase for a bike which I now commute to work with five days a week. I highly recommend this bike unless you are going to get into doing 20 miles a day.
I find I thoroughly enjoy riding the bike and it makes me feel better and relieves stress. I have lost about six pounds since starting to ride the bike 4 months ago.
I fell on the bike about two weeks after starting because the road was slick from rain. I had on my helmet but I badly skinned my knees and my elbow and my hands. I now recommend everyone go and buy some kneepads and elbow pads and gloves if they are going to ride.
The Academy store has all this equipment but if you go into the bicycle section you are going to spend more. I went to the basketball section and the football section and I purchased some basketball knee pads and some elbow pads at a fraction of the cost of bicycle equipment.
I also bought some reflective stickers and put some on my helmet and my $4.00 mesh backpack. The only other advice is to avoid high traffic streets because a lot of people don't respect bicycle riders. The cost in gas that I save is about $300 per month.

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