Report provided by Richard VE3UNW and Stuart VE3SMF.

A huge thanks to the Amateur Radio operators who came out to provide radio-communications support for the Rideau Lakes Cycle Tour 2025 on June 21-22, 2025!

The Ottawa Bicycle Club’s (OBC’s) Rideau Lakes Cycle Tour (RLCT) is one of the country’s longest-running cycling events. This two-day bicycle ride goes from Ottawa/Perth to Kingston through picturesque towns and villages along the Rideau Lakes waterway, to overnight in Kingston beside the shore of Lake Ontario. On the Sunday, the RLCT returns back to Perth/Ottawa.

From the perspective of Auxiliary Communications Service/ Amateur Radio Emergency Services (ARES), the OBC is the served agency. The Ottawa, Lanark, and Kingston Amateur Radio communities collectively worked on the RLCT 2025 Amateur Radio communications plan, which was integrated with the OBC unified communications plan.

There were approximately 44 Amateur Radio operators (29 from the Ottawa area) assigned to fixed locations, support vehicles, and one motorcycle.

Over the course of the two days, there were several challenges that stressed the RLCT 2025 Amateur Radio communications plan.

The Kingston Amateur Radio repeater was not available for this event.
Between Saturday evening and Sunday morning, a significant weather event with heavy rain, high winds, and lightning caused widespread damage and resulted in:
- A power failure in Westport but the Shillington Park rest stop had a backup generator. It ran out of fuel after all but about five cyclists had gone through on Sunday.
- Repeater failure in the Lanark region. The fallback plan of using simplex operations was implemented.
Direct sunlight and high temperatures on Sunday resulted in overheating and degradation of VHF transmitters at several sites.

The annual participation of the Ottawa, Lanark, and Kingston Amateur Radio communities provides a tremendous volunteer opportunity for Amateur Radio communications across several districts using multiple repeaters, simplex channels and coordination with a served agency.

The Ottawa, Lanark and Kingston Amateur Radio communities provide situational awareness and live updates to the OBC. The OBC provides overall administration command and control of the event. As the event moves through various routes and geographic regions, the Ottawa, Lanark and Kingston Amateur Radio net control stations (NCS) seamlessly transfer control. This is the basis of Auxiliary Communications Services (AuxCom) and the Ontario Incident Management System (IMS).