Confession: I carry a hot pink lady’s purse...

Actually, I carry two purses, one inside the other – a sassy hot pink purse and an elegant little brown bag.

Both are quite lovely, but you won’t find me sashaying around town with them. These purses are tucked away in my panniers, backpack or bicycle bag, depending on which bicycle in the fleet I decide to use on any given day.

I got tired of packing my tools around wrapped in a greasy rag inside a plastic Safeway bag, so I asked CP if she had any extra purses. She opened a drawer and about a million of these bags fell out. They look like purses to me, although technically they might be makeup bags.



The bag on the right carries the patch kit and the CO2 tire inflator. The bag on the left carries everything else, including the smaller purse.

Everything is packed nice and tight. There’s a strong zipper and the material is water resistant.

Best of all these “tool bags” were free.

That means something, especially after spending $40 today on a new rear wheel. The rear axle was bent on my old wheel and fixing it didn’t make a lot of sense given the cost involved and all the internal damage that was probably caused riding on it.