I took a Canon SX200 with me when I rode down the Pacific Coast last summer. I have mixed feelings about it... A buddy offered to lend me his G9, but it was bigger/heavier than I wanted to carry when off the bike. The SX200 is larger than most P&S cameras but it'll still squeeze into most pockets. The G9 is definitely not a pants pocket camera. The SX200 has no viewfinder! Focus is via the LCD only, which can be pretty difficult to see in bright sunlight. Quality is about what you'd expect from a long-zoom point-and-shoot: good enough for the web and small prints, but you're probably not going to land the cover of National Geographic with it. I was surprised at how often I ended up using the long zoom. I was expecting to shoot more at the 28mm end of the spectrum than the 300mm end, but the opposite turned out to be true... on that trip. The fact that the flash pops up every time the camera is turned on is annoying. Haven't owned a camera with face detection before and was impressed with how well it worked on the SX200.

If you don't need a big zoom, I'd take a long hard look at the G9/G10/G11. Many of the pros and semi-pros that I know carry one as a back-up to their Canon 5D and 5Dmk2 DSLRs...