Can I get that in writing?

The Man With The Van rides Steve's Loop
outside Fruita, Colo., last year.

I was talking with my wife Wednesday night when she asked why I had just used a few vacation days and stayed at home catching up on chores. She was surprised I hadn't called my brother and arranged to meet somewhere for a week of mountain biking.

I pointed out that he and I met in Fruita last year, so I hadn't thought I should try to do another trip this fall.

"What, you went last year so you can't go this year?" she replied. She pointed toward our neighbor's house across the street and said, "Neal goes to Florida with his buddies to play golf for a week every year."

Hmm. A bike trip every year?

At this point I thought of that old episode of "Cheers" in which Lilith Sternin-Crane makes a reference to sex in the morning and her husband, Frasier, quickly raises his head in surprise and says, "We can have sex in the morning?"

Don't get me wrong. My non-cycling wife is quite tolerant of my bike addiction so it's not as if I fear raising the idea of an occasional bike trip. But with busy work schedules, a middle-school daughter and a high-school son, and two bathrooms long overdue for remodeling, yeah, I'm usually cautious about suggesting suggest that I should hop on a plane headed in the general direction of Moab.

Fortunately, I accumulate a fair amount of frequent-flier miles. As long as the flights are free and I wait until her workload lightens after teaching fall clinicals, my wife said, why not go log a few days of cycletherapy?

Suddenly, it seemed to be one of those days when bits of information arrive in a way that seems a little too good to be true.

Mere hours before the conversation with my wife, I had received an e-mail from my brother saying he just put down a deposit on a brand-new Lopes 55 that will be ready in early 2007.

Can you say "road trip?"