One thing I have always been curious about is exactly when to replace worn rims. The rim wear that most concerns me is the wear that occurs when the brake pad grinds against the rim, eventually making it convex. So far, each time one of my rims has failed, the consequence has been a rubbing brake causes be a rim edge that has splayed out.
This time the failure was catastrophic (without actually having any catastrophic consequences thankfully). Here is a picture of what the wheel looks like after an attempt to inflate the tire blew the rim right off the wheel.

There are many maps shown on this website, mostly showing routes for various tours. These maps were constructed beforehand, with the view in mind of finding a relatively safe way through complicated high traffic areas. They make use of local bike maps, rides graphed on bikely, google satellite and street view, and various blogs and other material from the internet. The best way to make use of these is to put them on your garmin device, then have it guide you as you do the tour. It really makes a remarkable difference. You won't get lost, and will spend a lot less time hunched over maps.

For some reason I decided it would be a good idea to convert the cross canada bike (CCB) into a modern touring bike. It seemed kind of pointless to have the bike just sit there - its only function, to take our visitors on exhausting 5km rides around town. This is a bike that had made two major bike tours, flown about 10000 km in airplanes, and even done a bit of mountain bike racing (in its original unmodified form). How hard could it be? The plan was to use a lot of the extra parts for road bikes that I have lying around, and use them to retrofit the bike. Big mistake.