…and you know what that means. It’s St. Valentine’s Day, a day for sweethearts. Spring slowly advances northward with the lengthening days, and the birds are already tapping out territories and singing sweet tunes as they begin to turn their minds to love. The cottontail rabbits who come by to visit are already frolicking together. Soon waterfowl will pair up and return to The River as ice breaks up, hoping to pick up prime real estate to raise their broods. As the snow melts and days warm, chipmunks will pop out of their burrows, where they’ve sensibly slept through the harsh winter. The striped gentlemen will trek to the ladies’ burrows, where they’ll loiter in hopes of being present when they come topside to take the air. By June, little striped dynamos will be playing tag on everything they can climb.

As I turn my mind to the renewal of life and the return of spring, I wonder, do you think that if you put a couple of canoes together on a rack on St. Valentine’s Day, will a clutch of new canoes result? Just leave them alone to get on with it, and perhaps, just maybe, a pack canoe will be born in a few weeks or months. What do you think?

Of course I’m spouting nonsense, but wouldn’t it be great if that was possible? And you could do the same with bikes. Match a compatible couple of bikes and give them some privacy, and after a suitable interval out pops a shiny new bike. You’d have to be careful which bikes you introduce, though. Who knows what would happen if you paired a Surly Long Haul Trucker with a soft-tailed mountain bike.

 

 
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