Hey, I’m Nicholas Arnold your midday guy here on 89.7 Sun FM and I’m chronicling my experience of being on the 2024 Tour de Rock team. The 14 day and over one thousand kilometre bike ride has been done every year since 1997 and raises funds for the fight against childhood cancer. I won’t be able to get everything that we did today into this post, but here’s the highlights.
We awoke today in Sayward and were getting ready to roll to Campbell River. We started with a delicious breakfast of bacon, eggs, and fresh made scones at the elementary school. The same school where we had a potluck the night before.
In yesterday’s post, I mentioned an interaction with a really cool kid at that potluck event in Sayward. Just before we went up to eat, we were instructed as riders to pick a child out of the crowd – with their parents’ permission – and bring them up to get some food together. I wandered through the crowd awkwardly, looking for someone to make eye contact with me. That’s when I caught the gaze of Stokley.
As a single guy without kids, it’s been a long time since I’ve interacted with a kid in junior kindergarten, but I gave it the old college try. We walked up to the buffet line and I started asking a couple of questions. They generally got short responses, but I could tell it wasn’t because he was shy, but because he just didn’t really know what to talk about.
I’ll admit for a moment it was hard to keep pushing through the awkward and keep trying to find a common ground and considered a more passive approach to just get everything over with quicker. But I did continue to ask questions, and wound up getting some pretty intelligent answers from his young mind. You could tell he was starting to understand the world and it’s complexities, while still being young enough to have the spark of optimism and excitement about life in his eye.
Plus when I asked what he liked to eat, all he said was cheese so we just looked for anything with cheese in it – which is coincidentally the same gameplan that I have when attending a buffet. He is also a chef of sorts and even brought something to the potluck… A container full of cheese, cut into strips. I can’t say enough about what a cool kid he is. A real kindred spirit.
One of the things I asked early was if he liked biking and he told me that he just got a new “gear bike” that he was pretty excited about. I wound up sitting with him, his mom, and sister who paired up with Sooke RCMP’s Tour rider Mary-Ellen Somerville for dinner. We chatted, goofed around a little, got a big scoop of ice cream for dessert and ended up having a really special night. Towards the end, his mom said to him, “Well you’ll see Nicholas tomorrow when you ride bikes at the school.”
And so after breakfast today, we geared up and returned to the school. When we arrived there was a sea of bikes and an ambiance of children laughing. I looked through the crowd to see if I could find Stokley and race, like we’d discussed the night before. I spotted a bright orange helmet and a face that I recognized, so I yelled out his name. He was a little nervous at first, but quickly remembered who I was and said he was going to beat me around the block. We took off on what eventually amounted to a couple of kilometres… And we were flying. It was a fun time, and yes he ended up beating me. Overall, meeting him and his family was a huge highlight of my trip. It’s so funny things come together sometimes.
As for today’s riding, it wasn’t too bad. From Sayward to Campbell River was about 70 kilometres, which we can do without any issues. We had a little bit of riding, some significant descents which was a lot of fun. Also, Is Campbell River one of the hilliest cities on the island or did we just find every single hill there was in town and decide to ride it?
Now to the man of the day. It’s not often that a person is invited onto the Tour de Rock team if they’re not a first responder or media member, but this year we have one. Chris Seeley and his father have spent so many years feeding Tour teams at their Boston Pizza in Campbell River that he earned himself an invitation to ride. He accepted and had his homecoming today.
While originally from Ontario, Seeley has built a family and a life in Campbell River and calls it home. He mentioned that riding into town was likely to be his “welcome to the Tour de Rock” moment. He confirmed that after the day was over.
As someone not from the Island, I am living a lot of my tour experience vicariously through my teammates. Today I lived, laughed, and cried along with Chris in what was an emotional day. The team made sure that he was at the front of the peloton to be able to lead the charge and take it all in. As he was in the moment, it was so cool watching him roll into his town, bike by his Boston Pizza location, and be clearly taken aback while basking in an ovation of car horns at each and every intersection. Seeing him greeted by his loving family and fellow community members who are clearly so proud of what he’s doing was such a treat. And also, thanks to him and the team at BP for a providing us a great dinner later on in the evening.
The Tour doesn’t just mean so much to the people we encounter in communities, but as riders it’s such an honour to be a part of. Chris and his family’s reactions were such an important reminder of just how impactful this event is.
The Other CR
Now for some side quest hijinks. I spoke with Sun FM afternoon host Justis Doucet today and he had heard that I was losing my voice from singing while on the bike. He was wondering how we were singing on the ride and how we decided what song to sing and what not. He thought we were going a cappella, which is certainly not the case.
The truth is, when we’re riding on the road it’s as part of a precession. Maybe you’ve seen it. The lead car is a Dodge Charger that had been seized by Saanich Police from a drug dealer – I’m not kidding. They’ve outfitted the roof of the Charger with speakers that face backwards towards us riders and we each contributed to a Spotify playlist that we listen to. Naturally I’ve taken the opportunity to add in ridiculous songs that would be terrible to cycle to, just to annoy folks and hopefully get a laugh.
During training this summer, S/Sgt. Jereme Leslie from Saanich Police and I brainstormed about which artists may be the most ridiculous to cycle to. We landed on Neil Diamond. From there, I looked through his discography trying to find the perfect song to add to the list. Couldn’t be Sweet Caroline. Had to be something a little silly, something that a stereotypical adult male might be a little embarrassed to be caught singing along to, and maybe have a horn section. As I searched, the perfect song jumped off the page: Cracklin’ Rosie.
I was hoping it would just shuffle on at some point in the first few days, but it seemed unlikely as the person running the music in the lead car began to “play DJ” and pick a bunch of songs that were actually good for cycling (ridiculous, right?). It was the regular mix of upbeat songs by rock bands like Def Leppard, Queen, AC/DC, and Journey.
But as we left Sayward this morning…
One song ends, another begins to fade in.
“Is that a french horn/trombone?” I thought.
“Cracklin’ Rosie get on board…”Â
I lost my mind and screamed the lyrics to the entire song. Side quest complete. Next up, William Shatner’s spoken word version of Rocket Man.
Total kilometres ridden on Day 4: 108.31 km
Total kilometres ridden on Tour: 355.59 km
Sodas consumed on Day 4: 5
Total sodas consumed on Tour: 23
