Tweedlicious... and more cupcakes

Yesterday was the first annual Toronto Tweed Ride. It was a simply ripping time, despite the chill and light rain and wind. About 200 tweedily-clad people on all manner of bicycles took a leisurely jaunt around the city core to raise just over $10 000 for Bikes Without Borders and have fun.

I arrived at Trinity Bellwoods about an hour before the ride was supposed to start. It was nippy. I was actually pleased, because I really wanted to add gloves to the outfit and now I could. After an hour and a half of standing around, though, the cold and damp from the ground seeped into my oh-so-stylish shoes and numbed my toes, despite doubling up on the tights. However, it was fun watching everyone arrive, especially the penny farthing bicycle, and especially the other Opus Nuovella! Yes, I have finally seen a sister to my pretty bike. The owner of the other Nuovella has a gorgeous wine crate mounted on her rear rack. All in all, we were a very dapper bunch.

Speaking of which, I know you are desperate to know the outcome of the outfit vote. Here you go:

The short skirt won by a slim margin, but to be honest I wore it because it was supposed to rain and the long skirt doesn't do rain. Also, the short skirt shows off the argyle in the socks.

The route took us in a stately and well-dressed procession along Queen St. W down to Old City Hall for a photo op, then across to Church, down to Wellington, back over to John, then up to the Grange Park for tea. I quite enjoyed the looks we got from passers-by. At Church & Wellington, we intersected an off-shoot march from Occupy Toronto. At which point I said we should have made our own signs: "Tweed for the 99%!" The closer we got to the protest site, the more the passers-by wondered what we were protesting.

There was a lot of unnecessary wind and a lot of stop and go. I didn't mind for this ride, since it was supposed to be a leisurely jaunt, but I thought that if I had to ride that way during my commute, I would go crazy. Then I realised this is how Toronto drivers feel. all. the. time. Poor sods.

By the time we made it to the Grange Park, I had lost most of the feeling in my toes and was in need of tea. Fortunately I had some awesome tea cups with me. A few days before the ride, there was a minor tea cup crisis because Aged P couldn't find any of the unmatched cups and saucers she got at her wedding, but I eventually tracked them down. Then I couldn't decide which set to bring with me, so I brought two and decided which one to use at the last minute. I didn't have the gumption to ask someone to take a picture of me drinking from my lovely tea cup, although I know that some pictures were taken. This is why I should have joined a team.

Update: I finally found a picture of me at tea, although for some reason they've called me Audrey.

After tea, we took a roundabout route to Dovercourt House for dinner, conversation, and swing dancing. I'd just like to say here that, lovely as those shoes might be, they are not dancing shoes. I skipped the super fast songs, but managed to get enough dancing in to satisfy my soul. Sly Blue from New York are a terrific band; they played a swing version of heart of glass that I now must learn on the uke, naturally.

video credit: Jaymz Bee

So. Much. Fun.

A nice wrap up of the ride, with links to many more pictures, is here. (If you click on the Grid's link and look through the gallery, you'll see a picture of me and the Opus riding with the crowd on Queen St. And I'm right near the end of the second video.)

---

The previous Saturday brought a bike ride of a slightly different nature, in that it was really warm, nobody was wearing tweed, and there were cupcakes. Yes, it was the October Cupcake Ride!

I hadn't been on a cupcake ride since my last cupcake misadventure, due not to nerves but to being busy, so I'm so very glad I made it to this one. We started at Bake Sale on the Kingsway, where they had mini-cupcakes. I like mini-cupcakes. You can have several different flavours and not feel too much like a pig. Which I did.

It being October, all the bakeries seem to be doing their own version of a pumpkin spice cupcake. Bake Sale's icing was lovely, but I think maybe pumpkin is too heavy for cupcakes, which I prefer fluffy and light. Tasty, nonetheless.

Once we had eaten our fill and taken group shots, we rode down the bike lanes on Royal York to Lakeshore. Lakeshore west of the Martin Goodman trail is surprisingly bikeable; at least, there wasn't that much traffic that day. We got onto the Martin Goodman trail at its western edge, and again I got to see a path I'd never been on before. It was really lovely. I will have to go back and revisit when I have time to get off the bike and poke around.

There was crazy bike/pedestrian/scooter (scooter?! get yer motorized vehicles off my trail!) traffic east of the Humber Bridge due to the warm weather. I was happy when we turned off to head north up to Kensington Market.

Kensington Market was also a bit of a zoo, but that's to be expected. We wound up walking our bikes down the last street, it was so busy with people, and we had some trouble parking the bikes en masse, but we finally made it to Miss Cora's Kitchen. They had a stall set up outside, which was good because there was no way we were going to fit everyone inside the shop. They also had mini-cupcakes! Heaven!

Another pumpkin spice. I think I liked Bake Sale's cupcake better. The coconut was my favourite here. They also had pizza and brownies the size of your head. So much tempting goodness.

A lovely day, a lovely ride. Thanks, Hyedie!

You can see the rest of my photos of both the Cupcake Ride and the Tweed Ride starting at this picture in my Toronto album.

From Rambling Through Toronto

You can read Hyedie's post about the ride and see more pictures here.