my uncle seems to have worked

Yea! It's by no means warm but at least the deep freeze has lifted. No wind chills of -40 for a good week now!

Things like the end of February make me start to think about spring. Living downtown was great last summer -- we're close to so many things to do that we often could walk or bike. That is, once I got my new dork-cycle.

I realized last year that I hadn't ridden my old bike for a while when I took it out of the garage and realized that it had completely seized up thanks to the thick layer of rust coating the chain, gears and cables. The brakes were brittle and when pulled essentially crumbled, which unfortunately had only minimal impact on my speed. (Fortunately, though, the rust layer had prevented me from getting up much of a head of steam, so I managed to stop before I wore completely through the toes of my shoes.) Fair enough; I'd inherited that bike from my brother Jonny, who got it when he was about eleven. I figure ten years is a reasonable lifespan for a bike, and anything past that is gravy.

So I headed to Canadian Tire looking for a new bike. Nothing fancy; I mainly was looking for cheap as I'm hardly training for the Tour de France. I'm pretty sure what I ended up with is the dorkiest bike ever made. It's got the giant seat, granny-style curved handlebars and a nice shiny fender.

However, there's no doubt that this is the most comfortable bike I've ever ridden. It's got shocks on both the front tire (not sure why; I'm sure not riding on anything bumpier than paved streets... oh wait, I live in The Pothole Capital of the World) and the seat. I hardly have to lean forward at all to reach the handlebars so my back and shoulders never get sore. And the seat is about nine square feet and has an inch of padding -- it's like sitting in a nice cushy chair!

It truly is a Supercycle.