So I have broken one of the cardinal 
rules for people living in northern 
climates. I have become obsessed with 
a summer activity in the depths of 
winter. Bicycling.

It's clearly a product of being cooped 
up for COVID. I really want to get 
outside, feel the sunshine and the 
wind, enjoy the motion, and be free. 
The crazy thing is that I haven't 
bicycled much for years, since I moved 
to a neighbourhood in a town with San 
Francisco-style hills. That reality no 
longer matters to me. I have planned 
out the best routes to the flat parts 
of town and I'm going to be bicycling 
in the spring.

Meanwhile, I've been reading through 
every cycling post on the 
circumlunar.space bulletin board, 
perusing odd cycling websites, buying 
some new parts to get my old bike 
ready, and watching bicycle 
maintenance videos.

I tend to like vintage everything (old 
stuff gives me a good feeling), so I 
was pleasantly surprised to find that 
vintage cycling is a thing. 

Even so, it can be incredibly 
difficult to track down out of date 
parts. I have a 1998 or 1999 Norco 
Cherokee. It's a nothing-special 
mountain bike, but I like it a lot. 
It's in very nice shape, though it 
does need some new parts: new tires, 
tubes, and that rubber tape that 
covers the spokes. All of the rubber 
has deteriorated during the years it 
has sat in the basement. So that's all 
coming. I even found close-to-original 
tires with the red stripe (omg I'm 
such a nerd), that were decently 
priced and shipped for free from 
England. I can never figure out how 
sellers can afford to do that.

The most difficult thing to find was a 
new seat post. The current one has 
always been extended to the limit and 
I've always wanted a slightly longer 
one, so that there's a little more 
stem in the tube. But try to find a 
25.6 mm seatpost, when it was an odd 
size to begin with. After a lot of 
searching, I did find one and it's on 
its way from Poland. Sadly, it has the 
integrated seat clamp, so it's not 
quite period-specific. But beggars 
can't be choosers.

I guess next Sunday I'll find a tube 
of grease and start pulling apart the 
hubs. I need something to do until 
winter ends. 

Three months from now.