2014 Ottawa VeloVogue Plaid Parade: A kilometer of plaid

Ottawa’s VeloVogue, known mostly for the great photography of everyday cyclists in everyday clothes, is organising the third annual Ottawa VeloVogue Plaid Parade. It has become something of a not to be missed thing, and even if you are not cycling it is fun to see so many people gathering in plaid.

Velo Vogue’s Zara Ansar decided to move the Plaid Parade out of Hipster Haven Hintonburg to a more central location. This year, the Plaid Parade starts at Confederation Park, the park across City Hall.

The 8 km ride follows Ottawa’s World Heritage Site, the Rideau Canal and ends at Brewer Park. We’ll start at Confederation Park, follow the bike lane in front of City Hall to the Canal, then go south towards the Corkstown bridge. We’ll cross the Corktown Bridge and continue south along Colonel By (we’ll pass an inground bike counter so we should see an interesting spike in cyclists for that day in the stats eventually).

We’ll keep going south all the way, keeping Dow’s Lake on our right and Carleton U on our left. Eventually, we turn left into Carleton U’s University Drive, follow a path, go underneath Bronson bridge (the location for House of PainT earlier this summer) and end at Brewer Park.

There are prizes for the best dressed. Let’s aim for a group picture.

Photo and videographers/camera crews: “A km of plaid”

The parade is always a great opportunity for photography and video. Remember that this year, it will be harder to take pics and catch up again, as the Colonel By path is very narrow. The group will have to cycle single file most of the time, be it on the road or the path. This means that 250 participants with 4 meters per bike take up an entire kilometer of plaid.

Good vantage points are:

in front of City Hall,
locations near the Corktown bridge (south side, facing north to have the low sun in your back, unless you like silhouettes),
the park like setting stretch of Old Ottawa South,
the top of Bronson Bridge facing east (oncoming cyclists seen from above),
angles from Dow’s Lake towards the intersection into Carleton U, Carleton U property (permit required to film at property?) and arrival at Brewer Park.