Hi Everyone! I'm a little late joining this thread, but I also recently took up (road) biking. With a little good advice from Senrides, I purchased a new bike (Specialized Sequoia) in march and am already doing 25miles at a time.

My bit of advice to anyone starting out, get a helmet. The reason I took a decade off from riding (and piled on the pounds) was because I was in two back to back biking accidents, both of which wouldn't have been nearly as bad with a helmet on.

--nw