The Ride to Conquer Cancer 2013

Hello Everyone,

As many of you know, this past weekend I, along with 2650 other residents of British Columbia in support of the BC Cancer Foundation. The event this year raised over $10 million for cancer research, bringing the five year total of the event to over $50 million. Truly inspiring stuff, and reason for hope.

Tragically, this years event had a terrible and fatal accident involving a 16 year old cyclist (one article here: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2013/06/16/bc-ride-to-conquer-cancer-fatality.html). This was obviously very tragic, and very sad and my condolences go out to the family and the driver of the car. This was a very unfortunate and tragic accident. The ride will continue on next year, and the strength of the family has been amazing. His mother was in the event and released a statement stating she will continue to participate in the event next.

I want to congratulate everyone involved with the event though this year. The money raised is amazing and will make immediate impacts in cancer research projects that will benefit people world wide. I had the honour of participating in the opening ceremonies (I am having some trouble uploading the video....). Not a dry eye in the house, but it does an amazing job of symbolizing why we are here and why we continue to fight. Thank you to all of the organizers, with a special shout out to Byron and Boryana! Life long friends and amazing people!

I am very proud of my team, "Team Phoenix" as we raised almost $28000 and I have already registered the team for next year. This is a team photo about 6 km from the finish line.

 

From L to R: Destry, Eamonn, Jacquie, Jill, Heather, Sara, Shannon, Kurt

It was a long couple of days, but the weather was amazing this year. Last year it poured while this year it was sunny the whole way there over the two days. I was faster this year by more than an hour which was my goal. It was nice to see that I am getting stronger again. I can bike 240 km and feel not horrible afterwards (My legs were very stiff the next day but I still made it to work!). This was such an adventure again this year, over 16 hours on the bike (for me, some of my team mates are much faster!), but we made it. I am proud of the team and what they accomplished.

Here are a few selected photos from the trip (not in any particular order), I will be posting a full photo album in the next couple days, along with some video too. Some of the pics are my team, some random teams, the start line pictures of the crowd is amazing. So many people! I can't wait to do it all again next year!