Today was the annual Coldest day of the year ride organized by Cycle Toronto. Today’s route started at Tom Riley Park in Etobicoke to draw further attention to the westward extension of the Bloor bike lanes that was implemented last year. The weather was even warmer than last year, and so the turnout was significant. According to Brian Tao, there were almost 200 riders (including passengers on cargo bikes).
Cycle Toronto executive director Michael Longfield and Councillor Amber Morley make a few announcements and generally rev the crowd up. Councillor Morley has been steadfast in her support for these bike lanes.
Off we go.
Many familiar faces.
Albert remarks on the large turnout.
Headed down towards Old Mill.
Now back up the hill past the Humber River.
Some fast guys at Bloor and South Kingsway wish us a good ride.
Now at Bloor and Windermere.
Heather and her wool Cleverhood.
We turn into High Park for a regroup.
Now past Keele, headed up towards Indian Rd.
Cyclists as far as the eye can see.
Nice to see the underpasses not blocked by construction, but we still need protection.
That Bloor bike lane is full.
Michael helping to cork at Shaw. Good to see him back on a bike, albeit one that probably weighs three times his usual.
The ride ended at Christie Pits. My phone has been acting up, so I don’t seem to have any of my pictures there.
Nice to see so many people out on this sunny warm February day. Thanks to Cycle Toronto for organizing. Also thanks so much to the riders who picked up the pannier that I dropped while riding through the Kingsway. That pannier had one of my cameras, and if they hadn’t rescued it, there would be many fewer pictures on this blog post.
Rob’s account of the same ride.
Nice! I love a good winter ride.
I think that anytime an org creates a “worst/coldest” day ride, the ride will generally have nice weather. Our Worst Day of the Year ride in PDX (which used to happen basically this weekend) rarely had bad weather, except for the year where we got a snowstorm and the ride was cancelled (despite some people still wanting to ride.) The headline “Worst Day of the Year Ride cancelled because it was Worst Day of the Year” was hard to live down, so now they just moved it to March, where the name makes even less sense.