Decisions, Decisions

I have a bit of a dilemma. Now that it's warm miserably hot out, I've found that there are a lot of good reasons for me to be riding my bicycle constantly on the weekends. (Most of these reasons involve me not having air conditioning, but having a lovely 60-degree lake a few blocks away to swim in.) Unfortunately, on my most recent bike ride I discovered, among other things I already knew were wrong, that I basically have no brakes. So, I've resolved to get my bike fixed. It's just, now that I'm actually looking into things, I'm going to have to fix more than the brakes if I want to actually be able to ride my bike comfortably. And, ideally, if I'm fixing up my bike, I may as well aim to be able to ride it back and forth to work for the spring/summer/fall months (I've been meaning to do this for a while now, anyway). Unfortunately, it looks like I'm going to have to realign and replace my brakes, replace the nobbly mountain bike tires with street tires (no doubt the biggest expense), and fix whatever is wrong with the shifters (a minor annoyance, really, but if I'm fixing everything else...) It looks like the tires alone are going to cost me more than it would to just buy a proper (very used) commuting sort of bicycle (... and if I do this, the biggest plus I see is that I could get one that's significantly lighter than my current bike. The absolute worst thing in the world is coming back from downtown (which is about 7 miles away) and having to lug this huge mass of uncooperative bicycle up my narrow stairs). So, I'd just replace my current bike with a shiny new used one... except I've had my current bike since about sixth grade. I was 12 in 6th grade, and I'm 24 now, which means I've had this bike for exactly half of my life. My emotional attachment to things that I've had for more than a few years (remember I couldn't give up my old iPod because it'd stuck by me for four years) is pretty terrible, so giving up this bicycle is going to be really tough. Even if it costs me as much to fix as a new bike (and I do love new toys). So... If you were me...

[Poll #1421263]