Bicycles Anyone?

Today's blog must be short as it is a week night and in any case, you guys out there reading my blog did get a triple dose on the weekend. I think I kind of broke records in the words written category in the previous 2 posts. Plus I have another creative work in the offing as well. So tonight's blog will be short and I will just keep to one topic.

One thing I notice a lot these days is seemingly abandoned bicycles stuck in the snow. I don't recall this in the Beaches where I used to live. It must be a downtown phenomena that owners leave their bikes hitched up to posts on city streets throughout the winter. The bicycles are like boats landlocked in a harbour stuck until the ice melt in the spring.

The bicycle hitching posts are just about useless in the dead of winter, as they are invariably caught in the middle of a snowbank - along with the bikes that are chained there, wherever they are located. You can see these bikes everywhere downtown, not only outside condos but also up and down King St. and Queen St. outside bars as if the owners went in for a drink.

When I see one of these bikes, maybe outside a restaurant or bar, I can just picture the owners coming out, several hours later, only to discover that a snowstorm had trapped their preferred means of travel until spring's thaw. They give up and walk home and make a mental note to come fetch their property when the ice melts.

If these bikes were cars on a highway, the police would have them tagged and if not moved in a period of time, towed so as to keep the streets clear of abandoned cars. I wonder if the City of Toronto has "bicycle red hornets", checking on abandoned bicycles using up all the available hitching posts in the spring.

I suspect not. It could be that these bicycles will still be there next spring and the spring after next... I bet there are more than a few owners who forget all about where they left their bikes and so fail to collect them. Maybe I should tag a few and see if they disappear with the thaw or whether they are left unclaimed by their owners at the end of winter?

Maybe I will. :)