MSTO-NWO

Greg Stein — known to most of the Thunder Bay riding community simply as G — was on Cabot Trail last summer, touring with his wife and a couple of fellow instructors, putting some serious distance between themselves and Northwestern Ontario.

They stopped for a break when G spotted a familiar grin.

“I don’t recognize him at first,” G recalls, “but then all of a sudden he has a great big grin on his face.”

It was a former student. A rider from Manitouwadge who’d come through an MSTO-NWO entry-level course wanting nothing more than a confidence boost. He’d found it.

And there he was, thousands of kilometres from home, doing exactly what he’d learned to do.

“Just having that confidence to venture out and ride,” G says, “and running into so many people that enjoy the sport. That’s what it’s all about.”

The Training School That Keeps the Region Riding

G is an instructor with the Motorcycle Safety Training Organization Northwestern Ontario (MSTO-NWO). The organization has been putting riders through their paces under the Canada Safety Council’s Gearing Up program since its earliest days.

What makes MSTO-NWO special isn’t just its longevity or its certified instructors. It’s its geography.

From the Manitoba border to Sault Ste. Marie, MSTO-NWO is the only MTO-approved motorcycle training school in Northwestern Ontario.

There was a period, G explains, when the college that had been running motorcycle training in the region stopped offering it.

The ripple effect was immediate.

“The vast majority of the motorcycle dealers — I know them all personally — and they all took a hit on sales,” G says. “People didn’t want to put out for the expense of a bike and then have to put out for the expense of going to the GTA for training.”

It’s a detail that reframes what a training organization actually is in a region like this. MSTO-NWO is part of the local riding ecosystem. The thing that makes the rest of it possible.

What Happens in the Classroom Doesn’t Stay There

The courses MSTO-NWO runs are entry points, but the stories that come out of them tend to go a long way.

G tells the story of a dealer at Halfway Motors Powersports who took the course years ago and swore he’d never ride in the rain. It poured the entire weekend of his course. He rode anyway. He went on to become an MSTO-NWO instructor himself, and has since ridden virtually everywhere in North America — rain or shine.

G sees it over and over: people come in with anxiety and fear, with a bucket-list item they’re not sure they’ll ever actually cross off. But they leave as certified riders.

“You see people with a grin on their face that you couldn’t take off with a grinder,” G says.

The courses cover emergency braking, swerving, slow-speed maneuvers. Life-saving skills, G calls them. New riders leave with a foundation they didn’t have that morning. Veteran riders come back for refreshers, admitting they’d forgotten things.

“You can never stop learning,” G says, “and you should never stop learning.”

May Day in the Bay: All Things Motorcycle

On Saturday, May 30th, MSTO-NWO is hosting May Day in the Bay — a free, open-to-the-public motorcycle extravaganza running from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 94 Vibert Road South in Oliver Paipoonge, just outside Thunder Bay.

The day is part show, part swap meet, part reunion, and part introduction to the riding community. Visitors can expect bikes from across the sport — motocross, trials, enduro, drag racing, road racing, touring clubs, Harley groups, and local dealers — along with food from Fox on the Run, prizes, and a caricature artist.

The Kieselgaff Motorcycle Museum — one of the only dedicated motorcycle museums in Canada, which opened in Thunder Bay last December — is expected to bring out bikes from the collection.

Whether you’ve been riding for thirty years or you’ve never thrown a leg over a motorcycle, G says the event is designed to meet you where you are.

“Everyone here is willing to talk to you about motorcycling, whatever their take on it,” he says. “It’s welcoming to the public in general and certainly to those that are involved in motorcycling or want to become involved.”

The MSTO-NWO team will be on site. If a course has been on your mind, this is the place to ask real questions and get honest answers from people who’ve been doing this a long time.

The Bike Bash: Smash the Stigma

May is Motorcycle Safety Awareness Month. It’s also Mental Health Awareness Month, and G doesn’t treat that overlap as a coincidence.

G has heard riders joke that a motorcycle can feel like therapy. He’s careful not to take that too literally, but he understands the feeling.

“A lot of people, if they want to clear their mind and get away from things, they’ll go for a bike ride and just forget about everything else that’s bothering them.”

In that spirit, May Day in the Bay will include a fundraiser for the Canadian Mental Health Association. The Bike Bash invites attendees to beat on a donated motorcycle for a charitable donation. It’s a cathartic way to smash the stigma.

It’s a fitting note for an event that’s really about what motorcycling does for people.

It gets them outside. It clears the mind. It connects them to strangers on the Cabot Trail who turn out to be former students.

It builds camaraderie, G calls it, though the word doesn’t quite capture the grin of someone who shows up thousands of kilometres from home.

May Day in the Bay takes place Saturday, May 30th, 2026, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 94 Vibert Road South, Oliver Paipoonge. Admission is free and open to the public. For more information or to secure a table or vendor spot, contact Greg at 1-807-620-6786 or info@mstonwo.ca. Course registration is available at mstonwo.ca.