Saddle up, ladies: May is National Bike Month and the League of American Bicyclists is promoting May 16 as Bike-to-Work Day. Haven’t got a thing to ride? Fortunately there many bikes made for female contours. The appropriately named Susan B from Terry ($680; pictured) features the all-important comfortable saddle and a stem that brings the handlebars closer to you. Terry’s Fast Woman is lightweight but strong and reliable and offers options like pink rims ($1,000 to $3,000). For top-of-the-line bikes, cruise by Specialized, where you’ll find 2008 Designs for Women Road Models, including the top-of-the-line Ruby SL, touted as the “lightest, fastest and best fitting partner on the road” ($6,300). The Cannondale Six13 Feminine 3 is constructed to dampen vibrations and offers a velvety-smooth ride ($1,800). It is equipped with puncture-resistant Michelins and a Fizik Vitesse Tri saddle, designed specifically for the female physique with a narrow front and wider back. In line with the trend commuting via bicycle in urban areas is Specialized’s Langster line of cycles named after cities, such as the Seattle Langster in an apropos emerald green ($740). Bike with the one you love on the Mocha & Mocha tandem ($5,725). If your best friend is a toy breed, attach this wicker basket ($80) to your handlebars. The Walky Dog attachment ($40) would work for a large dog that wants to run alongside you. Oh, but what to wear on that speed racer? Got you covered. Bike short are so ho-hum. Get revved up in Terry’s black padded flare skort ($90; also available in three prints) topped off with the blue Sheila Moon bolero ($39) and the matching tank top in quick-dry fabric ($54). Combine safety and style with the Giro Skyla helmet with a floral design ($38). Upscale riders will go for Giro Atmos helmet said to be lighter than smoke at nine ounces, with 26 air vents to help keep your scalp cool ($175).

You just got back from the family reunion and are confident you got the perfect portrait of the whole clan — after all, you did make all the kids and grandparents stand still while you snapped ten identical pics just to be sure. Sadly, when you upload the photos and see them on your computer’s big screen, there isn’t a single one in which somebody isn’t blinking, frowning, or (in the case of your nephew) sticking his tongue out. Enter the new version of Adobe Photoshop Elements, available at around $80 for either Windows or Mac: This friendly little application boasts a raved-about feature that makes it super-simple to craft one perfect picture out of many shots with minor flaws — just steal a smile from shot #4, a wave from shot #7, and blend them into your base shot using Photomerge, and you have something worth putting in this year’s holiday card. Which, incidentally, Elements can help you assemble, with an array of pre-designed layouts for scrapbook pages, slideshows and any number of other display options. As you’d expect from any program with “Photoshop” in its name, this one knows a thing or two about the technical details — color balance, contrast, et cetera — that make one pic pop out and another look drab. Fortunately for those of us who aren’t tech-minded, the programmers have harnessed Photoshop’s industry-standard tools into a format that’s novice-friendly: click here to tone down the red-eye, click there to make the colors more vibrant, and so on. Elements won’t turn a sloppy snapshot into an Ansel Adams, but it can help a curious amateur assemble a family photo album that looks better than most.

Children enjoy personalizing everything, even their shoes. Your child’s Crocs can be suitably original after he or she finishes decorating them, thanks to Croc-a-Doodles, a kit with three washable markers and four fabric paint pens, as well as sticker stencils and a sponge ($15). If they get bored with the design, they can wash with the decorations off and start over. Jibbitz (pictured) are cute charms that attach to Crocs; the dozens of designs include Spiderman, Green Goblin, Lighting McQueen and Tinkerbell ($3 each or $6 per pair). Clip-itz Shoelace Clips are both practical — they keep shoelaces tied — and decorative, available in a basketball that lights up, jewel-toned cubes and sparkly butterflies ($6 to $10). Another solution for kids who like a snazzy shoe look and have trouble with laces, is curly laces. The laces feed through the eyelets, and their springy texture keeps everything together without having to tie a knot ($2.50 per pair).

Smart women are making better choices about what they put on their skin, and the market for chemical- and preservative-free mineral makeup has grown in recent years. If you’ve never heard of Susan Posnick Cosmetics, chances are you will before long. In 1999, Susan was into a 20-year career as a professional makeup artist, when she was diagnosed with skin cancer. Cursed with sensitive skin and a need for serious sun protection, she shelved her film and fashion work to develop what is now the best-selling cornerstone in a complete line of makeup. ColorFlo ($64; pictured) is a pure mineral foundation with an SPF of 26 available in 13 shades. Application of ColorFlo is easy and efficient, thanks to the unique self-dispensing refillable brush. A gentle sweep of this versatile product gives you a light finish, but you can also apply ColorFlo with a heavier hand if you desire more coverage. Posnick’s mineral line also includes the popular ColorMe ($32) face color, available in seven highly pigmented shades that self-dispenses with a built-in powder puff you’ll never lose. Inevitably, Posnick has branched out with products like ColorEyeDefine ($26), an amazing eyeliner and eyeshadow in one streamlined pen; ColorForever ($24), which combines a plumping lip conditioner and separate lip color in one; and ColorCorrect ($22), a handy dual-sided creamy pencil to conceal and brighten. Part of the appeal of Posnick’s line lies in its travel-friendly design. All of the products are meant to do double duty: When you buy ColorCoated , for instance, you are getting a mascara and brow gel in one tool ($24). Susan Posnick Cosmetics are carried at day spas, medical spas and clinics in the U.S. as well as chic boutiques around the world ranging from Fred Segal in Los Angeles to CoLeColle in Japan. But you won’t have to travel that far to experience the Susan Posnick line; the newly designed web site makes color selection easy. In a day and age when many of us are trying to simplify our daily routines, you’ll feel good about buying products that multi-task so beautifully.

Back in the ’90s, offbeat indie-rock heroes They Might Be Giants put a series of mini-songs called “Fingertips” on their album Apollo 18. Many of them were little more than a single phrase, adorned with a musical treatment that was just strange enough to lodge them permanently in your head. They’ve applied a bit of that technique to their two recent addictive kids’ records, Here Come the 123s and Here Come the ABCs; the musical versions of these were mentioned here a while back, but recent versions pack each CD with a must-have bonus — a DVD in which the little learning tunes are accompanied by animated films and introduced by adorable sock-puppet versions of the bandmates John and John. Elsewhere in the DVD aisle are three more restrained pleasures for youngsters, short movies from the ’50s and ’60s that have become such classic fables that one recently inspired a critically praised feature-length remake. Each centers on one object of a child’s devotion: The Red Balloon (the one that was remade) is self-explanatory; White Mane is about a beautiful horse; and Paddle to the Sea is about a little canoe and rider, carved out of wood, who make their way from the Canadian mountains to the ocean, encountering everything from frogs to wildfire along the way. Kids who haven’t had enough of the alphabet after They Might Be Giants’ version should pick up The Alphabet from A to Y with Bonus Letter Z!, another curious celebrity effort. Here, comedian Steve Martin pens memorable alliterative rhymes for each letter, while New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast does illustrations for each. Book-lovers on the other side of the preschool/high school continuum, meanwhile — and maybe their parents — should hunt down The Film Club, the nonfiction account of what happened when a novelist made an unusual deal with his teenaged son. He would let the boy drop out of school, which he hated, on one condition: He had to watch three movies a week, ones Dad chose, and be available to discuss them afterward.

For many, the word “vacation” and the thought of lying on a pristine beach taking it easy don’t go together at all. Given how many hours we spend at our computers, sitting in offices where perhaps the most exciting thing that can happen is the arrival of a box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts, is it any wonder we yearn for the jaw-dropping sights and pulse-quickening adventures of the great outdoors? If you dream of using your senses as they were meant to be used and maybe even seeing great creatures in the wild, you need to visit Big Animals Photography Expeditions. Started by photographer Amos Nachoum, whose explorations have been featured in National Geographic and on the Discovery Channel, this travel company limits the number of guests to give each participant the chance to move about and take pictures (under Nachoum’s expert tutelage, if desired) and, most important, to leave the wildlife and their habitat undisturbed: “Our goal is to see, photograph and interact with the most imposing inhabitants of the animal kingdom, and to observe special behavior such as predation, migration, nursing, and parenting.” Choose from scuba diving and wildlife adventures in Antarctica ($9,950 and up, plus airfare); a once-a-year month-long expedition to Africa, which includes an encounter with the great white and the whale shark, in addition to the traditional “big five” (lions, leopards, cheetahs, rhinos and elephants) for $40K plus airfare: or witness a 1,000-mile sardine run over the Wild Coast (east coast) of South Africa ($5,900, plus airfare). Even if you aren’t a photographer or long-time diver, you are welcome. All you need, says Nachoum, is a passion for nature, the spirit of adventure and a desire to step beyond the typical experiences offered by the usual travel agency. Large sums of disposable income are also helpful. If you go, we suggest taking a pair of focus-free Bushnell binoculars (sale price: $59 to $83) because you don’t want to waste a second focusing. An excellent photography book to get you ready for the trip is The New Complete Guide to Wildlife Photography: How to Get Close and Capture Animals on Film.