I'm spoiled, especially this winter.

Albuquerque has seen only a few stray flakes of snow all winter (none remained on the ground for more than a couple hours) and hardly even a drop of rain since October... I whimper and complain when daytime temperatures do not rise above AT LEAST 45 to 50 degrees [7-10 Celsius]... roads are still lovely... and with little precipitation there was no expansion and contraction of the pavement, so a pot hole is seldom seen and would have been quickly patched, anyway.

My younger brother still lives in CT (75 miles northeast of New York City) which has seen a typically bad season - although nothing like a Chicago winter [yes, that's why I live HERE!]. He claims the suspension of his car now regularly bottoms out in the glacial crevasses and ravines on his street - which were formerly mere potholes but were just left unpatched.

I would imagine there is a boom in the full-suspension Mountain Bike market... for urban commuters in Minnesota and the Chicago area. As early as late-December there were already national cable TV news and weather features focused on the Chicago city streets... which were already looking like the city had been carpet-bombed by a stray a squadron of B-52s.

Good luck to all of you tough bike commuters in the Great White North of the US mid-west. Spring weather will come your way before too long... Oops!... and then perhaps months of road repairs too