This year marked the 30th Anniversary of the Ride for Sight, which raises money for blindness research across Canada. So far the Ride has been able to raise over $16 million dollars for the cause.

This was my first year participating in the annual ride, and I was pleased to have reached the High Miler status by exceeding my personal goal of $1000. It was an experience that I will never forget and one that I was proud to be a part of.

I joined the team of GTAMotorcycles.com (an online community or which I am a member) and although our team goal was originally $25,000, we totaled over $37,000 in online pledges alone.

I decided to ride up to Centennial Park in Trenton (bike loaded with all my camping gear) on the Friday night and set up my tent at the team campsite. As a promise to those who helped me reach my goal, and being a man of my word, it wasn’t long before I changed into a kilt, which I had to wear for the entire weekend (except for while I was riding). More team members arrived throughout the evening and joined the party around the campfire. Similar scenes were going on all around the park into the wee hours of the morning while the band jammed at the concert off in the background.

The next morning we had to wake early, despite retiring to our tents only a couple hours earlier, to prepare for the ride into Whitby for the start of the official “Ride for Sight”. After our morning coffees and perhaps a few Advil, we set off to converge on the AMC parking lot in Whitby along with literally thousands of our closest motorcycling buddies. The parade across the country side started promptly at 10am and was led by the OPP Golden Helmets Precision Motorcycle Squad.

Our team was the second team to roll out lead by our team captain “CuteKill” and beside her was “Aminal” who had a special guest as a passenger…our co-captian Meghan, a 13yr old girl who touched the hearts of our team and is also diagnosed with Retinal Disease. She personally raised over $5000 for the ride. She was our inspiration to raise more every day.

The ride itself was a leisurely pace and took about 2.5 hours to reach Trenton again. The ride was extremely well organized with the OPP leading the way and police cruisers controlling all the intersections for us allowing the parade to stay together and which stretched out over several kilometers long.

The emotional part for this rider (as well as for several others) was seeing people parked along the route, in the middle of nowhere, holding up signs thanking us for our support and supporting the Ride itself. This became more and more common as we rolled through smaller towns. The closer we got to Trenton spectators sat in lawn chairs on the edge of the road to watch the parade slowly roll by. This phenomenon was nearly overwhelming when we rolled into Trenton as hundreds of people applauded our arrival, with the final touch being the sound of bag pipes as we entered the park.

It wasn’t long before the party began. Members of our team (including myself again) changed into our kilts and thousands of people around the park began cutting loose and having a good time.

The vendors were kept busy all day and well into the night selling food and all types of riding gear. As well, there were several demo rides from manufactures, stunt shows by the Suzuki FMX Team and precision riding demonstrations by the OPP Golden Helmets. There were also several “bike games” that pitted average riders against each other and provided lots of entertainment for the crowds. Some of which included a sled pull, the slow ride competition, the ring toss, musical bikes, and of course…the wiener bite (all using your own bike and most required a passenger).

Once again, the band played late into the evening and everyone partied pretty hard…until the storm hit around midnight. The torrential rain fall sent most people scrambling for cover while the animals started lining up 2-by-2 looking for Noah and his Arc. Although the rain didn’t last long, most people retired to their tents for the night. Despite the clearing sky and my efforts to “encourage” people to emerge from their tents, most stayed wrapped in their sleeping bags and we ended up with only a few of our team around the campfire that Saturday night.

Sunday morning a few people figured that since I kept them up the previous night, they should reciprocate accordingly and provide me with a special “wakeup call”. Although despite their best efforts to “spider” my tent (popping the poles allowing the tent to fall on me), they couldn’t and resorted to shaking the hell out of it and yelling. Hey…fair is fair and it was all good fun.

All in all, the weekend was a great success! Bikers from all walks of life came together for a common cause and raised nearly $250k in online pledges alone. Everyone had a great time and it was a huge party hampered only by a bit of rain Saturday night.

As for the ride home though on Sunday…well that is another story.