I whined enough about crappy rental bicycles to get my father to get me a road bike. I got a 2015 Trek Lexa: it's lightweight, not fluorescent, and cost under $700. I'm doing a metric half-century in about a month, if I remember to sign up for it. I've already gone that far before; it's hard but incredibly doable. Eventually I want to ride 100 miles in a single day.
The other day we cycled round-trip from Lowell, MA to Pelham, NH. This basically led to the discovery of what I now call a bike-through New Hampshire liquor store: I took a selfie in my helmet near the wine. We also went cycling Sunday.