1. •We’re sixty-three years old.
   

2. •It will be the biggest cash purchase we’ve ever made. It will cost more than any automobile we ever bought.
   

3. •We’re not athletic, and we’re not highly experienced cyclists.
   

4. •We live in (not just near) a city, and we don’t drive. No car trip to the trailhead; it’s heading out the front door and into the street.
   

5. •We could get scraped up, broken, badly injured, or killed.
   

6. •We’re sixty-three years old. I might already have mentioned that.
   

But, on the other hand:

1. •We’re not too old to enjoy cycling.
   

2. •It will cost less than the low-end Ducati Monster.
   

3. •We’re walkers, and Christine is a swimmer, and we’ve ridden enough to respect that we have limits.
   

4. •We live in a city with a growing network of bike lanes and spirit of accommodation, and we live three blocks from the BART train station to get out of town.
   

5. •We could get scraped up, broken, badly injured, or killed if we drove cars every day, to and from work and everywhere else.
   

6. •We’re sixty-three years old, which, we hope to confirm first-hand, may be the new fifty-three.
   

7. •Then too, there’s something that middle-aged and senior folks tend to fully grasp: life is short.
   

And one more thing:

1. •Christine and I are soulmates. We’ve been together—and been through a lot—for forty-one years. We love time spent with one another. We love ballroom dancing, and we’ve heard that tandem bicycling is A LOT like dancing.
   

2. 
   

3. 
   

4. [The red bike in the photo, though very similar to the one we’re buying, is a rental from Blazing Saddles here in San Francisco. Photos of the real Finnegan tandem will show up later, a couple of entries further into the blog.]