I'm taking on the Tour de Cure
Held by Ben Yip
This summer I will be riding in my first Tour de Cure in support of the BC Cancer Foundation. I was able to schedule a quick Q&A with myself to answer some burning questions.
Q: Wait, you are planning to ride a bike 100KM? I didn't even know you knew how to bike.
A: Hi and thank you for the question. Yes it has been probably close to three decades since I had a bike that I could call my own. I guess it was one of those COVID silver linings in that exercise options were scarce, but the weather was good. My fast twitch, anaerobic-only, hockey-butt muscles never could carry me very far running, so hopping on a bike was the natural choice. During those early days of lockdown, plugging in some earbuds and going for a 45-min ride was a great way to hit the reset button.
Q: Ok that's cute - 45 minute rides probably mostly downhill. You do realize that 100KM is consecutive, and to be completed within a single day, right?
A: Again, thank you for the question. Yes, it will definitely be a challenge, and I look forward to training with my fellow teammates both here in town and virtually for those who are out of town.
Q: Tell me a little bit about your connection to your teammates...
A: Our fearless team Captain Derek Wong is a family friend and I know he has been passionate about this event for 10 years now. We were all devastated when [his father] Uncle Sam passed last summer after a courageous fight with cancer. Perhaps my fondest memories of Uncle Sam were in the mundane hallways and elevators at the VANOC head office. He would illuminate your day with his signature smile. So when Don Lee asked me if I would be interested in joining the team, I couldn't have been more honoured.
Q: Softball question next: what type of bike do you ride?
A: My COVID bikes were: a Rocky Mountain MTB (thanks Chapman!) and a road bike Kona Esatto (thanks Ed!) This quickly crowded the garage, so I landed on a gravel bike that could essentially handle both the trails that I enjoy and the training on the road. So I swapped those two for a Cannondale Topstone Lefty.
Q: Ok time to wrap this up. Any final thoughts you want to share?
A: I guess I will start by saying that it's pretty exciting to be planning for some live and in-person events again. The pandemic was (and is still) so hard to navigate. So I will leave you with two thoughts on family, health and hope.
As mentioned, my solo trips into Pacific Spirit Park were great. But even better was having Cole start to join me on a few runs and maybe this summer Joy will too. Holly has an ebike but we may need to negotiate who straps on the baby seat / chariot for the Mookman [insert winking emoji here]
The other thing is that, whether we wanted to or not, I think we all received a crash course in [armchair] epidemiology and pandemic governance. Without getting into the politics, it was nice to chalk up a "W" for Team Science.
And perhaps my layman, idealist hope for this cause is that maybe there's an insight; maybe there's a correlation, a lesson, a congruency coming out of the pandemic that sparks a giant light bulb and maybe we can finally crack this cancer code in our lifetime.