I did the 2024 WNBR Toronto. It was great!

I truly enjoyed riding in the Toronto WNBR despite being a little chilly at least by my standards. I arrived at Coronation park around 10:30am. It was partly sunny and about 70 I was not sure I was in the right place and there was very limited parking on the road that went through the park. I saw a car pulling out and I grabbed that spot and figured I would figure things out. I put in for the minimum on the parking meter. I asked a guy that was walking his dog if I was at Coronation park, he said yes. I then asked him if he knew where the naked bike ride was assembling. He said he saw some naked people down a ways by the lakefront so I headed there on my bike (clothed) It turns out the assembly point was only a couple hundred yards from where I parked (Good start!) Once I found the assembly place, I rode back to my car, stripped down to just my nylon running shorts and put in for the maximum time on the meter ($11.00 Cdn) since it was $2/hr and I figured I would be there at least 6 hours. I rode to the assembly point and promptly removed my shorts. There were about 35-30 riders there and maybe a half dozen photographers. After about an hour there were probably 75 riders and a dozen or more photographers. That number grew to about 150 riders and maybe 50 photographers. Any one that knows me knows that I was loving that!

A few observations: This ride starts at the same place and time every year on the traditional second Saturday in June (Next years has already been announced)and a map of the route was published weeks in advance which explains why there were so many photographers. This ride is organized by the same person as the Montreal ride that I have ridden in on 2 occasions. As expected it was well planned and well run. One thing I noticed was while at Montreal we had 100% Police cooperation including a Police escort. officers on bikes (clothed) blocking cross streets and overall making the ride safer, there was none in Toronto. must be a difference in municipal policy. There was a female reporter from Naked News (Yes, there is such a thing) Interviewing the organizer and many of the participants including me! I noticed more women riders and more younger riders than most rides. Bodes well for the future. We stopped several times along the route, including at the CN Tower, and a park with a cool bike statue. We also passed several double decker open top sightseeing buses. I guess we gave them some sights to see LOL

The ride was scheduled to depart at 1PM and last 3 hours. There were tons of spectators along the route and a few times we circled around to make another pass where there were lots of spectators. There was a large circle with huge video boards in a few places on the outer perimeter. It looked like some sort of concert going on there. we took 3 laps around it and by the third lap most the people were watching us instead of the concert. With the extra laps the ride ended up taking about 4 hours and covered over 16 miles. It had become cloudy about midway through the ride and there were some scattered sprinkles for the last 30-40 minutes. it was fairly windy for most of the ride.
All things considered, I am glad I went. A few days before the ride, they were calling for cloudy, windy and temps in the 60's. fortunately it turned out better than that but was still a little chilly for wimpy Florida Boy. I may do it again although with the exception of Buffalo, I am generally trying to avoid repeat rides. Toronto is about 2-1/2 hours from my Mom's place south of Buffalo so I won't rule it out.
After the ride they had a bunch of riders lay down on the grass and spell out WNBR. I did not take part in that since it was getting a bit too cool for me.

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