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.
Part of the Tour de Rock that no one really talks about is what an emotional high it is for the riders. Once you leave the school system and summer camps aren’t really a part of your daily life anymore, there aren’t many experiences like it available to the average person.
You start training with a brand new set of people and grow to become a team. You see these people at least three times a week for about seven months, constantly growing towards this end goal. You spend all this time with a group of people who all have their own idiosyncrasies which you come to learn and love. Soon enough, someone you didn’t know a year ago may be closer to you than some blood relatives.
Emotions run high as you grow into a family. Sometimes politics gets in the way, whether it’s an argument about something that happened while out on a training ride or something planned for the rides ahead. When that happens we’re grounded when remembering the stories of Tour. Hearing tales of the children who we’re riding in support of and the tragedies of those who were in the program but ultimately lost their battle with cancer. Many shoulders have been cried on as we grapple with the horrors that some children and families are faced with.
We get thrown into a different kind of fire, with a bus ride up to Port Alice. Looking back only six days, I realize I had no idea what I was getting myself into. It’s not just those battling cancer who the Tour de Rock ride for; it’s anyone who has been affected by cancer in any way. And that’s pretty much everybody.
And because of that, everywhere you go, people are happy to see you and they are so happy to even be near you. Today I had flashbacks to The Beatles in their 1964 film A Hard Day’s Night. When the band walked into any room, people started screaming as loud as they could and wanted any piece of John, Paul, George, and Ringo that they could get.
There are some similarities with our merry little band. For example, we stopped at an elementary school in Royston today and they were outside screaming as we rolled up. I ran around giving them all high fives… And then they all wanted more high fives. Just the touch of a hand made them feel closer to this incredible phenomenon.
The same at Arrowview Elementary School in Qualicum Beach. One kid asked for the pompom that I had attached to the outside of my helmet so I gave it to him and told him to share with his friends around him. They devoured it like the last slice of pizza at a work luncheon. Honestly I’m not sure there was much left to keep, but they all wanted their own tiny piece of the beautiful machine that is the Tour de Rock.
It was taken up another level at Kwalikum Secondary School, our first stop after lunch. The school was absolute bedlam. We rolled up and the entire student population was out there waiting for us, they had tunes pumping and were cheering like mad. They had also made signs with each of the Tour riders names on them. Here was one with my name:
We were only there for like 15 minutes and in that time, four heads were shaved, we gave high fives to the students, line danced, and received a cheque for a couple thousand dollars. It was an unbelievable blur.
It just goes to show part of the beauty of a Tour stop. Generally they are so short and you don’t have too much time to make an impression. When the groundwork has been laid so well by the staff, like at this school, it can be exhilarating.
It was like each rider had their own fan club. As we were on our bikes about to leave I could hear chanting behind me, “STEVE, STEVE, STEVE.” And so I nudged Steve Foster, a rider from Westshore RCMP, and he turned to look at them. He heard the chants and waved. When he did, those kids lost their freaking minds. Steve, who can be rather reserved when it comes to expressing emotions, cracked a smile and you could tell it really meant something to him. Pretty sure the direct quote from Steve was, “That was cool. Really cool.”
A wave from Steve, a piece of a pompom from me, a rock-paper-scissors game with Keeley, a quick conversation with Jereme, or a high five from any of our 16 riders is enough to make those kids feel like they’re a part of this something that is bigger than any one of us.
There’s so many other examples of the rockstar treatment we receive throughout the ride from adults too. From the constant honks and waves from onlookers (I swear I’ve waved more in the last six days than Queen Elizabeth in her 60 year reign), to pictures with strangers at a Dairy Queen where we’ve stopped for a Blizzard. Oh, and at lunch today at Bailey’s in the Village, the wonderful owners said we could have anything we wanted. I had two huge bowls of beef barley soup, three sodas, and another huge bowl of ice cream. Delicious, and surprisingly did not give me a rumbly in my tumbly – to quote the great poet, Winnie the Pooh.
It is such an emotional high. People know that we’re doing it all for such an important cause and so they treat you like a family member. They share things with you that they might not share with anyone else. Their hopes and fears, their life stories, and their own experiences with cancer. Many who have personally experienced it and can’t imagine a child going through it. Many more who’ve lost someone to this dastardly disease and just want to speak their loved one’s name to keep them alive in some way. It is a true honour to help carry the torch for this two week span and keep this machine rolling.
There’s a reason many riders fall into a bit of a depression after their time riding the Tour is over. It’s because they know that there aren’t many experiences in life quite like this and now theirs is in the rear view mirror. I’m expecting a similar feeling on Oct. 5 after our grand finale at the legislature and I won’t be waking up ready to explore a new place with my surrogate family as a part of Vancouver Island’s version of Beatlemania. I’m not looking forward to the end, but excited to continue on this journey.
It’s a good thing that the Tour de Rock has a rule implemented that you can only ride in the event once in your lifetime. It’s such an immense responsibility and you’ve got to give it your all on your only chance to do it. Its finite nature is what makes the experience so much more valuable. But, if it were up to me, I would want to live this “Hard Day’s Night” over and over again.
Tomorrow we head from Parksville over the hump to Port Alberni, wish us luck. Almost halfway done.
Daily and overall stats
Total kilometres ridden on Day 6: 90.12 km
Total kilometres ridden: 527.61 km
Total elevation on Day 6: 512 m
Total elevation climbed: 4378 m
Total sodas consumed on Day 5: 4
Total sodas consumed on Tour: 29
