With the trees changing colours, comes the changing seasons. Soon the riding season will be over, or at least as we know it. For those of us who ride year round as much as we can, riding conditions will soon be far less comfortable as the temps begin to drop.

With that in mind, it was time to hop on the bike and do some riding and enjoy the fall scenery. A friend of mine John thought it would be nice to organize a group ride to take in the Fall colours on Saturday (Oct. 11th). As the date came closer, more and more riders decided that they wanted to join in. At the main meeting location, we ended up with about 100 riders! Wow…This had to be one of the largest group rides any of us had even been a part of (with the exception of Ride for Sight). For safety reasons, we broke into smaller groups ranging from 10-20 riders, each one had a leader and a sweeper (to keep an eye on the riders and respond to any incidents). I was to lead the third group with a 14 other bikes.

We began rolling out around 11:30am with a couple minutes between groups so that we didn’t likely bunch up except at designated stops along the way, either for photo opportunities or lunch.

Our ride took us along some great roads that John had layed out. Most of the group leaders had maps that John had provided although some, including myself, had the route loaded into our GPS units.

The route took us from Orangeville, up along Hockley Road, up Airport road to Mansfield. From there many zigzags lead us through towns like Horning Mills and Honeywood, finally stopping in Creemore for lunch. The look on the faces of the local towns folk was of shock as nearly 100 motorcycles converged on their sleepy little 1800’s town. Many riders departed after lunch and headed back to the city but for the rest of us, we continued onward to Blue Mountain to take in the sights overlooking Georgian Bay.

At this point most riders headed home, but some of us headed off for further good times to Johns place for a BBQ. I ended up crashing there for the night.

The next day, it was time for more riding but not part of a group this time. I headed up to Wasaga to spend a couple nights there. Monday was another great day of riding taking in roads like Upper Big Chute and Southwood Rd. I also made sure to stop in Bala for lunch in a neat little place called the “Hook and Ladder”, which is chalk full of firefighter decor.

Once done it was another night in Wasaga watching a really beautiful sunset.

All in all, I had a great few days touring around on the bike. I’m glad I took the time to do it, since nice weekends will be a bit scarse from now until spring.