There’s something special about Guelph and the Guelph cycling community.
We’re a small city, just around 150,000 people live here, but boy do we show up. Bike the Night is organized by the Guelph Coalition for Active Transportation and it’s the latest in the “we show up” events.
Here’s the announcement:
“Get ready to illuminate Guelph’s streets! We’re thrilled to announce the return of Bike The Night on Saturday, September 28th, 2024.
What: Guelph’s 4th annual illuminated nighttime community bike ride.”
Here is how it went. I’m not sure exactly how many people were there, definitely more than a hundred bikes. There were adults and kids and teenagers. There were some very elaborately decorated bikes and loads of riders in costumes. I think my favorite was the dragon and knight combo.
To give you an idea of the spirit of the thing there were 8 contestants for the best adult costume. Of course, there were lots of kids, dressed as Thing 1 and Thing 2, some teenage mutant ninja turtles and some princesses, obviously.
Did I mention it was drizzling? But that seemed to have little effect on the jubilant mood.
The ride itself was pretty short, along the riverside trail, through The Ward and back through downtown. It was well marshalled. The best bit was on the trail which was dark except for all the brightly lit bicycles.
We just had our usual bike lights, some fluoro bike clothing and a steering each of IKEA battery operated Halloween lights. But now I’ve got bike lights on my Christmas list.
Mallory has programmable Monkey Lights but it looks like they’ve gone out of business.
What are we going to dress up as? Ideas welcome!