Sue and Marshall, your Ride Coordinators for Tuesday welcome you below to the 2018 riding season.

Temperatures are warming up, snow is pretty well gone, roads are clearing up and the beautiful Northumberland hills are calling out to the Freewheelers. It’s time to start scheduling our 2018 Tuesday rides.

Your Tuesday Ride Coordinators (Marshall J. – until the end of July and Sue P. – for remainder of season) invite you to jump in now and help get this season planned and on its way.

• Do you have a favourite local riding route on our website? Then put a date on it now before someone else picks the route.
• Do you have a preferred date or time of year when you would like to host a Club ride? Then grab that date now before someone else does.
• Do you have a favourite restaurant/pub for an après-ride food and drink social? Then pick a date and get it booked before you become the 3rd host this year to use the same venue.
• Do you have a neat theme ride in mind that you always wanted the club to do? Then get planning, grab a date and put that idea in motion.
• Are you that procrastinator who always waits until season end to host a ride and finds that all the good routes have already been done 3 times? Then jump in early, pick an early date and get your club obligation out of the way and now with that done, you might also consider hosting another ride in the Fall.

Klaus has volunteered to host our first Tuesday ride of the season on April 3^rd. Check out the calendar to get all the details of this ride. While you are there, put your claim on a date, or maybe 2 if you are so inclined. You can find the email address of the Ride Coordinator to contact in the notes of each date’s entry in the calendar.

Let’s get this season up and running and the calendar filled up.

See you on the road!

Introducing your Friday Ride Coordinators:

• From April through July: Brian H.
• From August through October: Pete R.

Here are your Ride Coordinators’ thoughts on how we’ll roll this season on Fridays:

Friday evening rides typically start at 5:30 PM.

The routes vary slightly in length but are usually around 50 km. There will always be a shorter, usually less hilly option of around 30 km.

We strongly encourage you to host one, or more, of these rides. Either you can host the ride from your home or from any other location in our riding area. Either way you need to decide upon a route (which could simply be one of the many routes available on our Wonderful Website!) and either provide (paper) maps or ask folks to download them.

Most members who host rides from their homes also host a pot-luck supper afterwards, but this is not essential. Alternatively, you may elect to host a ride from a location other than your home and simply arrange for somewhere for folks to eat (restaurant, pub, picnic, etc.).

In other words you are most welcome to host a Friday ride in the same manner that most Tuesday morning rides are hosted.

Approximately once a month, we switch the Friday evening ride to a Saturday or Sunday morning ride, so you may wish to consider that as a hosting option.

The Calendar on the Website will inform you as to which rides have hosts. If it says “Ride Needs Host” then why not consider volunteering for it? Simply email the Ride Coordinator whose name and email address for that date will be provided in the calendar entry’s notes.

If by the Tuesday before the ride no-one has volunteered as host, then Plan B will kick in. In that case, the Calendar will say that the “Ride has No Host”. However, the Calendar and Website post will announce a starting location for the 5:30 PM ride and post a route map. It will be up the participants to figure out where to eat after the ride. One of the Friday Coordinators may, or may not, be there.

Hosting a Friday ride can be quite painless – all you have to do is email your Ride Coordinator with the starting location, route details and apres-ride eating arrangements.

Remember, our Club’s success is based on the participation of its wonderful members 🙂

See you on the road!

Attention all Ganaraska Freewheelers. The 2018 Ride Calendar is up. Your Ride Coordinators for the season’s first 4 months (Brian H. for Fridays and Marshall for Tuesdays) await your bookings. You can find their email address in the notes at the bottom of each date’s entry in the calendar. More details about hosting will follow in separate posts.

Note: Password has not changed yet – it will be updated in early April – watch for an email.

Great image Jennifer B. – thanks for sharing!

If you’ve never ridden with the Ganaraska Freewheelers, we encourage you to join us in 2018 for a Tuesday morning or Friday evening group ride. Especially if you:

• Live in or near the Port Hope/Cobourg area
• Think that a 2-3 hour recreational road bike ride a couple times a week is a fine way to stay fit and enjoy the great outdoors
• Want to discover some of the best cycling routes Southern Ontario has to offer
• Enjoy sharing the sweet taste of cycling with other like-minded cyclists
• Appreciate the chance to exchange those hard-earned calories burned for an apres-ride food and drink social

We are a social non-competitive cycling club in Northumberland County. We ride Tuesday mornings, Friday evenings and occasional weekend mornings. Our members take turns hosting rides, which means we enjoy a variety of scenery and start locations from Newcastle to Trenton and from the Lake Ontario waterfront to Peterborough. We generally ride 30 to 60 kilometres at a moderate pace and reward ourselves with an after-ride social at a restaurant, member home or park.

Our season opens on Easter Friday, March 30. Here are just a few of our special events planned for the 2018 season:

• The Port Hope Blossom ride that winds through the area’s most fragrant apple and lilac blossom trees at their peak
• The Golden Beach Resort ride with three of the best downhills in the area offering spectacular views of Rice Lake
• The Good, The Bad and the Waffle ride, followed by homemade savoury and sweet waffles and local maple syrup
• The Wobbly Tour of wineries in the Picton area, followed by lunch at Casa Dea Estates Winery
• Annual Thanksgiving Potluck with an unforgettable smorgasbord of traditional and trendy delights
• Weekend cycling tour to Ottawa, taking in our Nation’s capital’s extensive bike trail network and the beautiful Gatineau Park

Want to know more about becoming a Ganaraska Freewheeler Member? Visit our new member page to fill in our contact form and start the conversation or email ganaraskafreewheelers@gmail.com.

Already a member? Download our 2018 Brochure and share it with a friend!