> > I'm a traveler, not a tourist. So I don't always look at the same things tourist see. Bicycles for example. Most places people ride skinny-tired multi-speed bikes. But in Key west it's the fat-tired kind, often with only one speed. Then I went to Burbank and visited Warner Bros. movie and TV studio. Bicycles again. Mostly fat-tires and they are all over the place. More bikes per square meter that any place I've been. They are in hallways, in streets, leaning against trees, lamp posts, utility poles, walls. Everywhere! They zip up and down the street, in and out of buildings, down the sidewalks, across the grass, through the mud! Some of the riders are real daredevils. I wonder about the accident rate. I kind of think they just keep them around for anybody to use. At least some of them don't seem to belong to anyone in particular. I got to looking closer and some of them are so old they are antiques. I saw 40 year-old Schwinns, still in riding condition. I've sold worse bikes to collectors. Anyway, I guess it's the best way to get around a crowded, busy place like a studio. And it is in California where your teeth don't chatter.
> > Howard
>
> [Non-tourist, I salute you.]
>
> I was at least in upper elementary when I first realized people rode things that *weren't* mountain bikes. I'd only seen one or two skinny-tired bikes before that, and I figured they were all antique-types.
>
> It was only a few years ago I discovered sidewalks in other places we out of concrete (as opposed to asphalt), had cracks that were intentional (not from frost-heaves), and were meant for pedestrians.
>
> Chr"but that wasn't not really travelling"is

Chris,I hope you get to travel a bunch in the next few years. You will love it. The best thing about traveling is seeing places that are different.
Howard