Well I can tell you it was not going to be "noob friendly" or M1 friendly. I was planning to take 400-series highways to get there as fast as possible and spend a good portion of the day just touring the country northern roads. I've been in many group rides and there's no "in-between". Either some groups are too slow for me or too hot-blooded, especially ding dong supersport riders... don't get me wrong, I can cream any of these young race demons but I'm more worried about the OPP and losing my licence and my cheap insurance rates.
I once went with a group of about 16 bikes and wow man they had real slow-pokes in that group, I'm talking about 45+ year old guys with cruisers who made the whole group wait for them every 15 minutes. It was annoying. But then I have joined many group rides of supersport ding dongs who rode 140 km/h in country roads with 70 km/h speed limits.... screw that, I fear for my licence, I split up from those groups.
My group ride was going to be brisk but not double the speed limit, if you had a cruiser you were welcome but you better whine the hell outta that noisy dinosaur and be able to keep up with my brisk pace. 250cc CBR's and Ninja's in my group ride? Well if you wanted to bring a plastic spoon to a knife street fight you were welcome but it would had been at your own risk.