Welcome to the forum.
I've been carrying one whilst biking at night. I have it strapped to my backpack strap, not around my neck. The neck chain is your basic ball chain (like they attatch to pens at banks) covered with paracord (minus the guts of course). The chain should be strong enough, but you might want to break in the sheath first by drawing and sheathing the knife a bunch of times. Otherwise the hold will be very tight and you'll feel like you're yanking your head off when drawing the knife.
The knife is very light and very flat. It's very comfortable to hold, it feels like it was made just for my hand. It might look goofy, but the ergonomics are perfect.
I like the micarta verson better, as I feel you get a better grip on it. Plus, Vg-10 steels is greatly superior to AUS-6 when it comes to cutting. Of course, the tradeoff is that VG-10 isn't the most stainless of stainless steels (although it's pretty good), while AUS-6 requires a lot of abuse and neglect to get to rust.
I prefer the plain edge version myself. While serrations are usually a boon on a defensive knife, on the SPOT I feel they're too close together and they tend to snag rather than slice.
Right now the SPOTs are on closeout on Spyderco's website, so they can be had for quite cheap.
