Tour Alberta for Cancer

It’s the Monday after the Tour. I’ve taken a day off work to rest. It was a long weekend, with early mornings to get to Strathmore, combined with high temperatures that didn’t cool off a lot at night. Given that I signed up to do this last October at the BCC year-end social, it’s been in the future so long that it’s strange to think that it’s now in the past. As I’ve said before, I wasn’t worried so much about the cycling, it was more about the fundraising. I’d done two charity rides in the past, but they had only $500 minimum fundraising targets. The Tour was a $2500 minimum. I worried about that all through the winter. I didn’t want to compete with the Esri Canada United Way campaign at the end of the year, and collecting for a bike ride in the depths of winter didn’t seem to make sense. But in the end, I collected over $3000 thanks to 32 donors.

The Tour raised over $5,560,000 in total. It’s a big event, much bigger than the others. At the moment, I am not planning to do this event again, but never say never.

I was the “Team Captain” for Team Bow Cycle and point person for communications from the Tour. I also felt like I was herding cats as people who’d signed up weren’t fundraising or being communicative. I did my best but in the end our team was only three: Duncan, Joel and myself.

Tammy and I made our way out to Strathmore early on Saturday morning. The ride started at 8:00, but the opening ceremonies started at 7:30, and there was breakfast before that. We were on our way by 6:00 and arrived a little before 7:00. Despite my best efforts, I seemed forgetful. First I forgot to apply chamois cream, then I forgot to pump up the tires on my bike before walking away from the car, and then realizing I’d left my sunglasses on the car roof.

Things improved from there. We met up with Joel and Duncan, and we made our way to the start. The weather was perfect, with high teens at the start and little or no wind. The forecast was for 30 degrees, so drinking lots would be mandatory.

I’d never been part of such a large mass ride. There were 1,200 riders, but unlike most gran fondos, there were no separate start times for different distances. There were 75 km and 100 km distances, but everyone left at the same time. That meant that there were “waves” of riders. Our team started in the third wave.

That turned out to be a bit of a mistake, as we were faster riders than most and it meant we had to make our way through hundreds of riders, many (most?) of whom were not regular cyclists. There were a lot of lumps of riders that were fairly oblivious, which was dangerous. My friend Lorne did this ride about 10 years ago and he had a collision with another rider who did something unexpected and he ended up in the hospital. It also meant that by the time we got to the first stop, it was absolutely jam-packed with riders. We’d planned to stop at every aid station and take our time, but right away we looked at each other and then kept riding. We didn’t need water, food or a washroom at only 20 km into the ride.

Missing the first stop really cleared up the road for us, but that meant we were one of the first to arrive at the next stop. It was only 37 km into the ride and most of it had been downhill so we were there about 9:30. We weren’t sure if it was the “lunch stop”. There was no lunch to be seen, just the usual snacks and bottle fill. Again, we talked it over and convinced ourselves that this wasn’t the lunch stop. It had to be the next one. But once we were on the road, it became clear (based on my shaky memory of the route that we had just left the lunch stop, but the wraps hadn’t been put out yet. 🤦‍♂️

It was becoming clear that the original plan to take it easy and spend all day on the ride was not going to happen. We’d done our best, but it seemed like we were going to finish early. We headed east on the out-and-back section and got to experience one of the only hills on the route.

At the turnaround there was a “cheering station”, and it had a pipe band! They would show up on Sunday too, at the station that Tammy and Ian waited at.

When we reached the last stop with 25 km to go, I called Tammy. Our original plan was that Tammy would see us off, go home and do stuff and then come back and meet up with me in the afternoon and we’d have the BBQ dinner together. What actually happened was that it was only 11:00 and thanks to missing the lunch stop, I’d had nothing but granola bars and a banana, and we were going to be back at Strathmore just after 12:00. Tammy was shopping at Superstore at the time, and we arranged that she would make her way back to the event with a picnic lunch of sorts.

Towards the end, Joel was starting to flag. He’d had a mild chest cold since Tuesday and in the last 25 km of the ride, he was starting to suffer. There was a slight headwind and it was uphill back to the finish, and the temperature reached 30 as promised.

After crossing the line for day one, we found a picnic table with an umbrella and set up there. We ate some of the snacks and hydrated. Joel left almost right away, warning that he might not be back the next day. Tammy arrived with sausage rolls, blueberries and other things to eat as we sat and watched riders continue to cross the line for hours. Duncan stuck around for a while but wasn’t willing to wait until 4:00 for the BBQ. After he left, my friend Bill from the City of Calgary and his wife Dana joined us. They have done the Tour many times, and did the 100 km distance, but took two more hours to do it. That meant they were in 30 degree temps for three hours instead of one hour like we were. Bill was looking pretty rough.

I took advantage of the shower trailers and by the time I was cleaned up the BBQ was being served early, at 3:30.

We stayed to listen the first live band for a while (they were good!) before packing up and heading home. Day one was in the books, and it was time to get ready for day two.

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After the disastrous evening with the kids’ bikes being stolen, I offered for Tammy and Ian to opt out of taking part in day two. The idea had been for them to see us off and then navigate to a couple different spots on the route to get some pictures. Ian would use the Canon camera and the new lens that we picked up a couple weeks ago. Tammy was leaning towards staying home, but Ian wanted to go. So we were off, a little later because we knew what to expect and there weren’t any opening speeches on day two.

Joel had let us know in the evening that he would not make day two, so Team Bow Cycle was down to two riders.

We were smarter in our choice of starting position: much closer to the front. When we left, there was much less bike traffic to maneuver through, and we got to the aid station before most other riders. In fact, those who made it there before us were “racing” the ride and didn’t stop. All in all, it meant that for the whole day, Duncan and I were among the first at the stations, and were leaving just as they were starting to get busy.

There was a north / north-west wind blowing on day two. The temperature was about the same, but we had to do serious work every time we went north and west. From the first station, there were three legs of increasing length that went into the wind. We were lucky to join up with a guy named James who was strong and took turns with us.

We were more aware of the course on the second day and I knew where the lunch stop was: I’d planned that Tammy and Ian could be at Cheadle when we came in, but Tammy couldn’t find a spot, so she and Ian moved on to the next cheering station to wait. I actually had a roast beef wrap this time and Duncan, James and I sat down and chatted for a while before pulling out again.

Duncan was suffering in the wind, but gamely taking his turns on the front, even if they were a little shorter. We passed by Ian and Tammy at the cheering station halfway through the last and longest headwind section.

It was such a relief to finally make it to the eastward turn. Then it was a crosswind, but with only two riders (James had gone on ahead) it was easy to manage. And then it was a tailwind on the last 10 km to the finish.

We were tired but happy crossing the line. There was a lunch at the end and Duncan, Tammy, Ian and I sat in the tent and enjoyed the shade and food. Then it was time to be on our way, with the weekend over.

Nothing more was lost or stolen. Dinner was Mittilini’s pizza and watching a couple episodes of Prehistoric Planet.

And unbelievably, after riding 214 km in two days, I had the energy to install the uninterruptible power supply (UPS) downstairs. We lost our power a couple times due to the thunderstorms in the past week and that caused issues with the network and the Synology. Now there’s battery backup for short power outages. The whole network (Shaw cable modem, gateway, switch, controller and 2 out of 3 Wi-Fi hotspots) and the Synology should stay up even if the power dips or goes out.

Updated

I created an ArcGIS Story Map of the day to share with the people I canvassed for support.