For a number of reasons, I didn’t make a complete record of the National Ride on this blog. I was really hoping to stay on top of my blogging, but trying to keep up with sleeping, eating and riding, on top of captaining the team occupied much more of my time that I thought it would. I do want to share a few of the more memorable stories with you before I pack up this blog for good. Here’s the first of three or four….

Part 1 - Brody

One evening a few months ago, I saw a great story on the CTV evening news about a boy, Brody, who was doing great things for kids with cancer. He had decided that every child with cancer in the province of Alberta should receive a special kit that made it easy for them to create a scrapbook to document their cancer journey. At only 12 years of age, he mobilized tons of people and raise a ton of money to make this happen. What made the CTV story even more remarkable was that this child also had cancer and instead of worrying about his own illness, he took extraordinary steps to make the lives of others better.

I dug up a contact email address through his website and sent him a quick email letting him know how impressed I was with his selfless actions and encouraged him to continue his campaign.

After a few more email back and forth, we managed to figure out that we would be able to meet during the National Ride. Brody lives right near the route we were going to take and his mother was more than happy to bridge the last little bit by driving Brody to a rendezvous point.

We rolled into Rocky Mountain House much later than expected. The wind kicked up a lot of dust in the hard-pack dirt parking lot that we arrived at.

I quickly picked Carmen out of the small crowd of supporters, Sears employees and media that had shown up and we quickly struck up a conversation. Looking around, I didn’t see Brody, so I asked where he had gotten to. “He’s helping load the bikes”, she noted, pointing at the transport trailer that we were using.

Sure enough, the scrappy little guy was quite engaged in helping out and was loading a $12,000 Pinarello Prince onto the waiting trailer. I laughed that he had great taste in bikes.

As Carmen and I worked out the logistics of a small gift exchange that we had planned, I noticed that Brody had retreated into one of our RVs, having been cornered by a media mini-scrum. Climbing into the RV, it was obvious that he was more than a little bit upset by all of the unanticipated attention. We cleared out the RV and quickly agreed that it would be best for Brody to go for a quiet walk with Andy and Boston instead of stressing him out even more by posing him for the cameras and questions.

Before he went for his walk, he and I had a few minutes together. I gave him a few small gifts that we had for him - a ride jacket, some water bottles and dogtags. He was pretty excited about it all and made me fill up his water bottles with Amino Vital, “just like the riders”. He gave Andy and Adam a scrapbooking kit each as well and a thank-you card for all of the riders. He also told me all about his upcoming trip to Hawaii to meet Dog the Bounty Hunter, one of his idols. Later his mom would tell me that our National Riders were quickly replacing Dog as his main inspiration - which really choked me up.

I found out afterwards that Larry, one of the crew captains, took the time to take Brody out for ice cream. Brody showed Larry his “beaded journey”. In the flurry of activity at the parking lot, Brody had forgotten to show all of us, but Carmen later explained it to me in an email…

“…each bead represents a treatment that Brody has received during his fight with cancer. You will notice close to the end there are a lot of red little beads all together. The red beads represent blood transfusions. Brody had to have 26 blood and platelet transfusions within 24 hours when he ended up in the ICU at Christmas time when he went into septic shock and his blood pressure was 58/38 and dropping. “

After Brody and Andy went off to walk Boston, Carmen and I answered a few questions for the media about the National Ride and Brody’s scrapbooking campaign. The visit was over very quickly as we still had a lot of riding to do. Before we left Rocky Mountain House, our team dedicated that segment of the ride to Brody and Carmen told us a lot about Brody’s fight with cancer. It was an incredibly moving intermission to our ride, and we rode out of the small town very quietly.

Brody is a pretty remarkable kid. While his bravery in the face of such a terrible disease is amazing, I’m even more awestruck by his selfless efforts to help other kids in the same situation. Brody is now working on making sure that every kid in Canada who has cancer gets one of his scrapbooking kits.

If you want to help Brody make this happen, be sure to make a donation at his website.

Lazing about in Halifax today.

First thing on the agenda today, I thought it would be a great idea to get a tattoo to commemorate the occasion, so it was off to Merchant Marie’s for Amanda and I.

Yes, it did hurt a little, no it wasn’t that expensive and yes, now that I’ve got one, I’ve already thought about my next one

Afterwards we went to the Halifax Multicultural Festival. We ran into Asif Illya, lead singer of local band Mir, who also joined us for the stage ride into Halifax on Friday and played at our reception the other night. Turns out the festival is organized by his dad.

Very cool.

Yesterday we spent the day doing break down. Returning RVs and cars (sad to see the X6’s go) and sorting out all the gear to get it ready for shipping back to Toronto. The guys at SLH were great. Not only did they volunteer their time to help us out, but they managed to rustle us up a nice steak dinner, complete with some great wine, right on the loading dock.

Tomorrow we’re off to Peggy’s Cove. Two possible plans - a) rent a car or b) rent a tandem. I’m really rooting for plan b, but I can’t find a tandem rental shop in Halifax. That, and doing an 80k there and back might be a bit much for Amanda. I’ll let you all know how it goes.

We’ve safely arrived in Halifax. Today was an awesome day in many respects. Hammering off the front for 50k, spending a beautiful afternoon in the garden at the hospital with kids, clowns and cake, dipping our wheels in the ocean and of course our wonderful celebration.

There’s so much to take in and reflect on I don’t know where to start. Rather than try to make sense of it all, I’m going to just enjoy the taste of it for a while and write up a recap sometime tomorrow when things have settled down a bit. Coming into town, I only managed 3-4 hours sleep in the last 2 days, so getting caught up is definitely my first priority.

I will pass this along though. All day long, everyone kept asking me how I felt coming to the end of such an epic journey. I told each of them that I didn’t really know. To me, this feels like nothing more than a small portion of a much larger journey. A single stage of a much more significant trek.

And I can’t wait to find out where the next stage will take me.

Off to bed, more tomorrow.

I lost my Grandpa over the weekend. He had successfully battled numerous cancers over the last few years, but he wasn’t able to prevail in the last bout which saw him hospitalized late last week. At 2pm EST tomorrow, I’ll be stopping my ride for a few minutes in observation of his funeral service in Winnipeg tomorrow afternoon. I’ve sent along the following note to be read at his service:

When I first heard that Grandpa had lung cancer, I was terrified that we would lose him. Somehow, his grit and determination combined to give us all a number of years with him that I didn’t think that we would get.

I’ll never forget the day he showed me the scar from his operation. I was out back of his woodshed having a cigarette. Hiding really, knowing full well that he’d give me a real talking to if he saw that I was still smoking after everything that he went through to survive his cancer. Of course, he knew exactly what I was up to and made sure that I got the point that I was killing myself. That’s when he showed me his scar. He always had a way of getting through to the kids, whether we were misbehaving or just having fun, it was always easy to talk to him, and be talked to by him - even to present day in my 30’s.

I never did tell Grandpa this, but the stern chat that we had that day changed my life. Shortly after that, I kicked a 14 year smoking habit, dropped 50 pounds and started riding the bike I hadn’t touched since high school. Short distances to start - 15, 20 minutes at a time. But quickly building up to 100, 200, even 300 kilometres a day. It was definitely hard work, but nothing compared to what he went through to beat his cancer. Every inch of the way, I was driven by the inspiration I’d drawn from my chat with Grandpa that day.

Earlier this month, I embarked on a bicycle trip across Canada - Vancouver to Halifax in 19 days. There are 48 of us riding around the clock to raise awareness and funds to help children who have cancer. Before I left Vancouver, I put a picture of Grandpa in the pouch of my jersey to remind me of the grit and determination I would need to find to make it from coast to coast.

Last week when Uncle Garth told me that Grandpa was back in the hospital, he told me it was nothing to worry about. I believed him of course - no reason not to. Grandpa was one of the toughest guys I’d ever met. I was certain that this was just another one of his set backs, and that he was still on a good course for good health. I also told myself that if we were wrong, that I would cut my journey short and fly back to Winnipeg. I never got that chance, things moved far too quickly. I keep telling myself that this is why we need to treat every moment as precious, but at the same time, I would give anything to see him just one more time.

If I did, I would tell him how much he inspired me and set my life on a better track. I would tell him how much he taught me about the importance of having fun, of being with family and helping friends in need, of firmness and laughter and of making sure that one doesn’t spend all day indoors - especially when wood and water needs to be brought in, gardens needed to be weeded and lakes needed to be swum in. I would apologize to him for not liking hockey or football as much as he did, but thank him for teaching me that it was okay to get excited and yell about things just because you enjoyed them - even if it was just a field goal or overtime game winner. I’d also try and convince him to come blueberry picking one last time.

I am in Montreal as I write this. Since hearing of Grandpa’s passing, very few miles have passed without some thought of Grandpa and everyone that surrounds him. At some point, I realized that this journey didn’t start on a beach in Vancouver, it started with that chat that day out behind the woodshed at Ottermere. And while I will never get a chance to thank him for this, I can and will finish this trip for him, comforted by the picture in the pouch of my jersey and the hundreds of great memories that we creted together.

I regret not being with all of you, but you are all with me, in my heart, my thoughts and my prayers.

Love,

Ross

Its been a couple of bad days for connectivity. I’ve got a ton of stories to tell and I’m going to upload a whole bunch of stuff over the next couple of days. I’m in Thunder Bay right now, we’re just leaving for Nipigon to start our night ride. We just came back from a ride out to the Terry Fox Memorial. It was pretty moving knowing that we are going into the last half of our ride, knowing that he never had a chance to do the last half of his run.

We slept over night in Atikokan and met a great girl Jolene, also a cancer survivor. She ran into us by chance, and we spent some nice time talking to her, hanging out and later on, she took us over to her school where we met with some of her classmates.

This afternoon, we made it into Thunder Bay where we had another community ride.

Now, we’re being shuttled over to Nipigon where we start our night ride.

At any given time, we have three teams of riders on the road. While one team rides, one team is being shuttled forward to their starting point and eating and the other team is sleeping. The rides are broken up into 4 hour segments, which has the effect of turning a 24 hour day into a 12 hour day.

From hour 0 to hour 4-5, we are sleeping. From hour 5-9 we are riding. Hour 9-10 is when we eat and get cleaned up, and finally, hour 10-12 is when we shuttle forward to where we will be sleeping and starting our next ride.

This means that each day, we have a day ride and a night ride. Every ride is unique, interesting and challenging in its own way. And, like I mentioned earlier, I really like the night rides because its just you, the bike and the road. Unfortunately, it doesn’t provide you with any sense of where you are, what the scenery looked like, and sometimes, where you were going. A lot of the rides are starting to blur together now, especially the night ones. I’m starting to remember them more by “what happened” as opposed to “where we were”.

This was one of those rides. I have no recollection of where we rode from, or to. I’ll have to check the map when I get back and fill in the blanks.

Dear Brody -

It was really great meeting you and your mom today. You are really lucky to have such a super mom, and she is just as lucky to have a great kid like you. We’re sorry we were late arriving to meet you. I can’t imagine that it must have been very much fun hanging around in the parking lot waiting for us to arrive!

I’m really glad that you like the gifts we gave you. Your mom said that you proudly wore your jacket and hat to school the next day. You must have been really excited to tell all the other kids about your big day. Andy really appreciates the gift that you gave him as well. Right now, the gift that you gave us for Adam is safely stored in our RV and well on its way to Toronto. I will personally deliver it to Adam and also give him one of your business cards as well.

You might not realize this, but you are a big inspiration to everyone on “Team One Hope”. Everyone on the team is very impressed with your selfless, thoughtful work to help kids with cancer. We’re all very proud to call you our friend.

Also, thank you so much for all of your help unloading our bicycles, filling our water bottles and everything else you did to get us on the road. We couldn’t do what we are doing without the help and support of people like yourself. Its amazing what can be accomplished when we work together.

I hope that you have a great trip to meet Dog. You must also be very excited about that as well. He seems like a pretty cool guy.

Larry told me that you took him out for ice cream! That must have been a lot of fun. Did you know Larry once rode his bicycle across all of the United States from San Diego to Atlantic City in just 12 days? He is a really great guy.

Today we rode our bikes from Piapot to Swift Current. We are moving across Canada very quickly now and will be in Manitoba tomorrow. I really hope the next time that we meet that we can go for a bike ride together. Each year, we also have a shorter ride in Alberta called the “Tour for Kids”. It leaves from Calgary and goes up into the mountains. It is just three days long, but it includes a lot more riders. I am hoping that I will be able to participate this year - it would be my first time doing the Alberta Tour for Kids, although I have participated in the last four Ontario tours.

After our national ride is over, we will have to get to work on your website. Your aunt and mom and I have some pretty ideas how we can improve it so that you can get the word about Scrapping for Cancer out to many more people. I’m really looking forward to working with you on that project.

Thanks again for everything that you are doing. We will all be thinking of you as we ride cross our great country. One of the things that makes Canada such a great country is people like you and your mom working so hard to help people that they haven’t even met. You should be really proud of what you are accomplishing.

Warm wishes and best of luck in everything you do!

Ross

We had another great night ride tonight. Its unfortunate that we were riding through such great scenery at night, but nonetheless, we really enjoyed ourselves. Getting into Edmonton itself seemed to take forever - lots of red lights made it slow, and a lack of cars made it frustrating! No one likes to stop for red light in the middle of the night, especially after riding for so long with out stopping. Tonight we rode for Matthew Yip, a childhood cancer survivor from Alberta.

We had a great ride today. We left Valemount BC at 12:45 this afternoon, heading towards Jasper Alberta. Larry Optis joined us - he’s a big guy, with a big heart and I always enjoy riding with him. Larry is one of the key crew members and has been going non-stop since early last week. His schedule is so tight, he’s had 3 hours of sleep in the last 60 hours. Larry enjoys riding so much that he gave up his scheduled nap this afternoon to ride with us through some of the best scenery of the ride.

We rode for Jack today. Jack is a young lad fighting cancer. He recently had a relapse, but his therapy is on track and his treatment is moving in the right direction.

Brian, the rider who dedicated this segment told me a little bit about Jack shortly after we started riding. Turns out Jack is a huge fan of Terry Fox. Brian didn’t know this, but coincidentally, we were riding past Mount Terry Fox at exactly the same time he was telling me this.

One of our riders ran into some stomach problems today - actually, he has been fighting it for the past four days. About 50 kilometres in, he had to take shelter in our chase vehicle.

It took us almost exactly 4 hours to cover the 121 kilometre route today and we rolled into Jasper Alberta right on schedule. That’s one province down and we’re only 1.5 days into the trip. We got a ton of ground to cover still, but everyone is feeling pretty good. Sleep is a bit of an issue, but I think we can sort that out by going through our transition zone faster - today it took us almost 2 hours to eat, get showered and back on our shuttles - its only supposed to take an hour. This means one hour less sleep tonight. I’m not happy about it but unless the team tightens up, there’s not a lot that I can do about it.

We’re shuttling forward to our sleep zone now. After that a night ride that takes us through the Alberta foothills and into Edmonton, arriving at the West Edmonton Mall at 4:30am or so. From there, we have a stage ride with local Edmonton riders, and then we’re back on our way.

We left hope at 12:45.

We were having a great ride. Night rides are always amazing because there are no distractions - its just you, the bike and your fellow riders. Hills melt away beneath you At around 2am someone in the peloton realized we hadn’t received our dedication from the crew.

Each of our ride segments is dedicated to a someone who experienced a cancer journey.

I got on the radio back to our support vehicle - “Jamie, we need our dedication”, I said.

“Scotty.” came back the crackly voice.

“Tell me about him,” I asked.

“12 years old…” and then nothing.

“Come again?”

Silence for a few more seconds.

“Scotty died in January 2006. He was 12 years old.”

It was tough hearing that, and even tougher sharing it with the rest of the peleton. I think it took me an hour to pass it around the ride group.

After the ride over breakfast, Kelly, our team nurse, came up to me and let me know that Scotty was her nephew. I didn’t have any words for her, except to thank her for sharing.