I’m finally done, and was able to take 11 minutes of video down to 3.5, as well as pairing it with a peppy pop song that has been in my head for a few months (thanks to CBC Radio 3). I give you the Sweet Ride paired with “Big Blue Wave” by Hey Ocean.

In addition to the photos I posted on Sunday, be sure and check out the photos Hyedie posted on her Cupcake Ride Blog.

The next Sweet Ride is on Saturday, June 23rd.  We haven’t picked a food theme yet, but will soon.   Stay tuned.

If you are female and can’t wait for June, Hyedie is planning the next Girls Cupcake Ride for Saturday, May 26.

If you want to keep up and informed about future rides, you can also follow BikingToronto and the Cupcake Ride on Facebook and Twitter:

BikingToronto: Facebook | Twitter

Cupcake Ride: Facebook | Twitter

I ended up taking 149 photos and videos along the way.  Most of those (about 100) are short little videos I’m currently editing into one for you (it’s taking a while), but here are the better photos I took.

Details about the next ride are after the photos.

The next Sweet Ride is on Saturday, June 23rd.  We haven’t picked a food theme yet, but will soon.   Stay tuned.

If you are female and can’t wait for June, Hyedie is planning the next Girls Cupcake Ride for Saturday, May 26.

If you want to keep up and informed about future rides, you can also follow BikingToronto and the Cupcake Ride on Facebook and Twitter:

BikingToronto: Facebook | Twitter

Cupcake Ride: Facebook | Twitter

I’ll have the video edited and posted as soon as I can.

Over on the BikingToronto Flickr Group, I always look for great photos of bikes and cyclists around Toronto (I’m looking into ways of highlighting these on the blog more, quickly and easily) but what I love to find is someone just rockin’ one of the I Bike T.O. t-shirts I designed.

Pictured below is Elli, a new(ish) cyclist in Toronto, looking amazing in an I Bike T.O. shirt, and below the photo is text by Elli telling us a bit about herself as well as why she bought the shirt.

So little bit of a background story on my biking adventures. I started doing long city rides with my best friend Luke in the summer of 2010. The rides have always ranged between 35km and 75km. Even though we were both born and raised in Etobicoke, we found biking around Toronto was such a different, interesting, and fun way to see parts of the city that you can’t see when you’re in a car. I used to go to university in Waterloo, so whenever April rolled around we would be itching to go biking again. Luckily this year I’m at school in Toronto so the biking has already begun with a trip to the Bluffs.

I came across the Biking Toronto shirts last summer while spending countless hours online looking through anything biking/city related. I finally decided a couple weeks ago that the wait had been long enough. A new season had just begun, and with that a new biking shirt had to be added to the wardrobe (to complement my new bike, of course!). When it comes to t-shirts I always prefer v-necks that are either black or white, so naturally I bought the womens black v-neck shirt. It arrived two weeks earlier than I was expecting it to, but of course that was just another plus. I love the shirt so much because it represents where I’m from and what I love to do. I think it is safe to say that I’m happiest when I’m on a bike.

I can’t wait to wear this shirt on my upcoming city rides and show it off! And perhaps I will even end up getting a few more of those shirts in the future. There are at least two others that have my attention.

Thanks Elli!

I hope you enjoy the shirt and that it helps you meet other cyclists.  Everyone seems to love them!

We’re gearing up for the 2012 Sweet Ride and Cupcake Ride season and Joe and I thought we’d be proactive this year and set dates for the whole season before hand.

While this is a tentative schedule, we’re hoping that nothing will come up and we can stick to the dates below. We’ll be setting up Facebook events for each ride, just like last year, closer to the each of the dates.

Hopefully you can pencil in some of these dates and we can see you out on a ride this year!

April
Cupcake Ride (Women Only)
Saturday, April 7

Sweet Ride (Co-ed)
Sunday, April 22 <- Earth Day!

May
Cupcake Ride (Women Only)
Saturday, May 26

June (bike month!)
Cupcake Ride (Women Only)
Sunday, June 10

Sweet Ride (Co-ed)
Saturday, June 23

July
Cupcake Ride (Women Only)
Saturday, July 21

August
Sweet Ride (Co-ed)
Saturday, August 18

September
Cupcake Ride (Women Only)
Saturday, September 22

October
Sweet Ride (Co-ed)
Saturday, October 13

* Dates are not final and may change!

Below is a large collection of photos taken by Derek at the Ice Bike / Icycle Races this past Saturday.  Click on any one of them to open up a larger version.  The one of the dude with the iPhone is me taking one of many videos I used to make this video of the races.

The following is an excellent list put together by Jun over at Biking in a Big City, who also took excellent photos of the races.

Shutterjet has some photos here.

TorontoGP Tourist has some photos here.

Update2: as per the comments, James has added a few more pictures of the rubber race, as well as a video to his original post, including this picture of meon the Xtracycle.

Some other photos by Kiril Strax here.

NOW magazine has a short write up.

Dandyhorse magazine has a nice write up with pictures, and a video that shows me (along with many other of my fellow riders) tipping over during the rubber race.

Torontoist has more pictures, including this one of me headed into traffic. I’m the only one with my headlight on.

You may know that BikingToronto organizes co-ed “Sweet Rides” that revolve around food every once in a while, and we organize them with Hyedie Hashimoto, the woman behind the Toronto Girls Cupcake Rides.

Hyedie has posted a re-cap and photo wrap-up of the latest Girls ride, and it looks like a great one. Go to the Cupcake Ride site to check in out.

In case you are wondering, yes… there WILL be a Sweet Ride soon… we’re aiming for mid-November, and we’re aiming for a warm food theme.

Two weekends ago, the Red Bull Mini Drome came to Toronto and set up at the Evergreen Brickworks. Dandyhorse Magazine was there and caught all the action:

In the heart of Evergreen Brick Works, next to the kilns that fired the bricks that built Toronto, 85 skilled and daring riders took on a steep and shrunken velodrome. With speeds reaching 35 km/h, on a track that appeared no larger than a suburban garage, the challenge was not only to set the best time but do so without slamming to the ground.

Johnny “Jet Fuel” Englar, made an appearance (racing a front rack-equipped single speed) as did many other legendary local riders from the days of the Human Powered Rollercoaster. But the big competition was Addison Zawada from Jacksonville, Florida who was also the Montreal mini drome champion.

Photos by Chris Kaiser

All photos courtesy of Dandyhorse. View a TON of photos on the DandyBlog post.

It was immensely successful (we estimated about 200 people showed up) and this will be an annual event. We kept hearing again and again how much fun everyone had and how they can’t wait until next fall when we do it all again (and hopefully bigger and even better).

The best part is the event raised over $10,000 for the fantastic work that Bikes without Borders does, which is currently sourcing and buying bicycles and bicycle ambulances for health workers in Malawi.

If you missed the event (or even if you were there, looking dashing and lovely in your tweedy best), you’re probably interested in seeing videos and photos from the event. This post is for you.

Let’s start with a great video put together by Xander of 416CycleStyle: Tweedride Toronto on Queen St.

The next video is also from Xander… of the massive tall bike (complete with propeller) on the ride. It has a funky soundtrack, that somehow mashes Tweed with the 1970s. haha.

After the ride, we all stopped at Dovercourt House (on Dovercourt, north of Bloor) and parked our bikes at the BikeValet provided by the Toronto Cyclists Union and Autoshare, and proceeded to have dinner and a swinging 2-floor party.

Here’s a video of Tweedsters and Swing Dancers cutting a rug to “Sly Blue”, a swing band from NYC.

Finally, there are hundreds and hundreds (maybe thousands) of photos out there of the absolutely astounding fashion on the ride. Here’s a few from our TweedRideTO Flickr Group:

If you’re looking for more photos, you can find them just about everywhere:

• Dandyhorse Magazine: Bowlers, bow ties and bikes: Tweed Toronto Ride
• Dandyhorse Magazine: Bike Spotting at Tweed Ride Toronto
• BlogTO: Photos of the Toronto Tweed Ride
• Toronto Tweed Ride Facebook page
• Toronto Tweed Ride Facebook Photo Album
• The Grid TO: Snapshot – Tweed Ride Toronto
• Torontoist: Spotted: Tweedy Bike Riders
• Photojunkie: Tweed Ride Toronto

Your $15 registration fee gets you:

• Official participation in Toronto’s first annual Tweed Ride
• High Tea (bring your own teacup)
• Swag Bag
• A Swinging After-Party at Dovercourt House.

People are putting together their Tweed outfits (or outfits inspired by a bygone era), and we want to see photos of what you are planning!

In fact, we want to see your outfits so much (and have your outfits inspire others), that we’re having a photo contest (which also closes on Wed. Oct. 12)…. all you need to do is “tweet” your photo to our @TweedRideTO twitter account, or email them to info@bikeswithoutborders.org and you’re entered!

Prizes! The winner of the photo contest will win a Basil Memories Basket and a Giro Bike Helmet, courtesy of the Urbane Cyclist Co-op.

Here’s a few photos to get you started…. submit a photo to win!

Yvonne Bambrick, Mike Brcic, Kristen Corbet, David Miller, Tanya Smith, Casie Stewart and Ryan Smith

This is me, trying out some tweedy clothes.  Yes, I don’t usually have a beard… the things I do/grow for Tweed! haha.

Kristen of Bikes without Borders, with the Penny Farthing at the ING Direct Cafe