This is not exactly a commuting question, but this still seems like the best place.

Had a car issue recently and my wife/I are considering trying out a one car lifestyle. We are both retired so have some personal flexibility here.

While my wife is not going to 'go out there on a bike', I am a recreational cyclist so this is a possibility. We live in a somewhat small area (3 adjacent towns with a total population of around 30,000). So this 'one car experiment' would take the form of me doing a lot of misc. stuff on a bike. This would take the form of 3-10 mile (one way) trips to go to the bank, go to the golf course (I can store my clubs at the course), mail a letter, etc. I can imagine such things 4-5 days/week.

And I'm not looking to start biking around town with 15 pounds of stuff that I just bought. I'd probably limit my load carrying ability to a messenger bag or something like that - after all we will own a car. And at this point I see no reason to ever get off OK to very good pavement.

I own/ride/like a older, but quite nice, late 90's EL-OS Nivacrom Binachi with upgraded Bontrager RXL wheels (23cc clinchers) and 2014 Chorus groupset (mechanical). And the question comes "do I just use this bike for dual purposes?". To achieve this I would acquire a pair of Flypedals (platforms that will clip into your pedals so I can avoid the clipless pedals/shoes issues), acquire an inexpensive set of wheels/cassette and put on a set of Gatorskins (maybe go tubeless??), etc. And then just swap wheels between real road rides and local riding.

I was just wondering what folks thought about this vs. acquiring an older 'beater' to achieve the same thing. And if I were to go down the 'road bike path', what kind of wheels (very willing to sacrifice weight to get to achieve low cost and durability, at least from a flatting perspective).

Thanks.

dave