This Site

The Oshawa Cycling Club is proud to be a partner with the United Way in the "Ride4UnitedWay" cycling event. This web site is not to be interpreted as the official "Ride4UnitedWay" web site. A link to the official web site can be found here. The purpose of this web site is to supply supplemental information to those looking for more facts about this event and to keep a running history of this event as it unfolds over the years. We hope the new ride will become the premiere cycling event of the season for southern Ontario and plan to continue to organize it in partnership with The United Way on an annual basis for many years to come.

The New Beginning

In the fall of 2008, after wrapping up the 25th year of organizing the club's "feature" ride, The Scugog Circle Century, it became apparent to the Oshawa Cycling Club executive that we had reached the final year of coordinating this event. The changing traffic patterns over the last twenty-five years have reached a point where we feel that following the same route or a similar one would put the safety of the participants in jeopardy. Many participants, past and present, have also expressed their feeling that the century tour was getting a bit long in the tooth and something fresh needed to be found. Many ideas were tossed about as we tried to decide on which direction we would head.

Step 1

As fate would have it, on November 17th local businessman and part owner of Impala Bicycles, Glyn Walters, presented a plan for a new ride to the OCC at the fall general meeting. Mr. Walter's ideas centered around creating a challenging new ride. The route would highlight many of our local towns and villages in an effort to generate community involvement and support. It would also feature many of the outstanding cycling roads which traverse the natural geography of the area. There would be a mass start to stir up the adrenalin in the riders. He also proposed getting a local charity involved as a way to give back to the community. After some discussion, his ideas were adopted and the "Ride The Ridge" event was born. Since then, Glyn has become a member of the Oshawa Cycling Club and is on the "Ride The Ridge" committee. He, along with Impala Bicycles are a major part of the driving force in making this new ride a reality. At this time we were fortunate to have our other local bike shop, BicyclesPlus, come onboard as well.

Step 2

To complete the new ride plan we needed to get a local charity involved. After meeting with a number of local charities, we found a rather symbiotic relationship with the United Way. We supply the cycling expertise and they supply much needed volunteers, administrative help and fund raising skills. The mixture of talents in the new committee is creating a win-win situation for all. The result will be a fantastic riding experience coupled with raising money for the community.

Conclusion

The "Ride4UnitedWay" was born. The name change was necessary to reflect its more charitable aspect.