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.
Day seven marks the end of the first week of the Tour de Rock, and it is one of the most daunting of the journey. Throughout our months of training the phrase, “the hump into Port Alberni,” is spoken with hushed tones and fear. It’s held right up there with the Malahat and the long North Island rides as the rigors of the actual biking. Today, we tackled the hump.
Starting in Parksville, we made our way out to the Alberni Highway on an early start just after 7:30 am. After a beautiful ride through Cameron Lake, we made our first stop at Cathedral Grove where we paused for a bathroom break and mentally prepared for the trip up the hump.
Our wonderful camera person, Jacinda Costello, (who does photography in the Cowichan Valley, if you’re looking for someone to take some pictures for you) got this awesome shot of me there.
Just before leaving Cathedral Grove, we were told a story about Saanich Police Sgt. Mike Lawless who was a staple of the Tour for many years before losing his own battle with cancer. Particularly it dwelled on a speech he used to give before his teams would tackle the hump. And then we were off and climbing.
Honestly, fate put me beside the right person for the way up. Community guest rider from Boston Pizza in Campbell River, Chris Seeley, and I started to chat a little bit about sports. Toronto sports to be specific. He an avid fan of all of their teams, with many stories to tell, and I had a few of my own. We talked about when I met Joe Bowen in the press box at a game in Scotiabank Arena when I was working with The Hockey News, Chris meeting Howie Meeker, the Sedins, and before we knew it, we were at the top and ready to make our descent.
The ONLY reason I enjoy climbing a hill, is because I know I’m going to get the chance to get a bunch of speed and fly down the hill. And that’s exactly what we did. For the only time on Tour, we got to separate from the group and go at our own pace. Four of us got into a race, as you’ll see below, and I ended up hitting a max speed of 73.8 km/h. I finished second.
Then we got into town and made our stops. I spoke to a man during lunch at Alberni Toyota who shared his own and his son’s experience with cancer. They chipped in a $5,000 cheque and fed the team a delicious hot lunch while we were there. Then we made our way to a Co-op gas station where an employee had promised last year’s team that she would grow her hair out this year to shave it, so she did.
Something I wasn’t expecting going into Tour was how much song would be our greeting from school children. First at an Indigenous school, they sang a very nice song of welcome and well wishes to us. Then at another school, they did it again bringing many of us to the brink of tears as we sat in the middle of their entire student population, while they sang around us. The energy was electric.
We closed the night at the Legion where our Valley’s Const. Warren Kongus shaved another bit of his beard and now only has a mustache. He’s gone full on Yosemite Sam, and I think he should keep it – though I know some people ‘prefer their mounties clean shaven.’
I, too, was expecting to lose a chunk of my beard tonight, however it was suggested to me to save it for later in the Tour. I had sat down in the barber’s chair and one of our honourary members (children who have experienced a cancer diagnosis and are a part of our tour team) had the clippers in his hand. So, we sat there for a moment and retired Saanich PD rider Daniela Frohloff jokingly said, “Why don’t we shave a strip out of his head?” And so…
Day seven was fun, but it also means we’re already into the second half of this crazy journey. I can’t believe it.
And now for, “AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT”
The thing about riding over 600 kilometres with a group of people is that there is a lot of time in the saddle. Like a lot. Through our first seven days we’ve had 27 hours of moving time. You’d think that the constant pushing of your legs up the next hill, the strain from concentrating on avoiding obstacles, or the shivering from being cold and wet would be the worst part of it. But it’s not. The worst part is the boredom.
The point of the 28 weeks of training (yesterday marked 200 days since training started, by the way) is so that the biking isn’t even something your brain thinks about while you’re on the road. We’re pretty much on autopilot, just having chats with our friends in a moving coffee shop. So we, like in normal times when you’re out with your friends and don’t have access to a phone or table to play card games, have to find something to occupy our minds and keep us entertained.
Sometimes it’s a bout of kareoke with the person next to you in the peloton. I had a good round of that with Virgin Radio rider Bailey Parker on Mr. Brightside, and CFB Esquimalt’s Capt. Liam Kenney on Timber by Kesha and Pitbull in the last couple of days.
Other times you need to really go outside the box and have some sort of wild new social entity can be born. That’s kind of what happened when I had a conversation with Nanaimo RCMP’s Const. Ian George. I haven’t mentioned Ian in my writing yet, but he’s a one of a kind. The kind of guy who would give the shirt off of his back to someone in need and can also have you crying so hard from laughter. He’s awesome.
So as we’re rotating through the peloton, Ian pulls up beside me and says jokingly, “So I hear we’re going to vote one person out of the team tonight.” A la the show Survivor.
I responded, “Geez, that sounds like trouble. How about you and I form an alliance? We could try to get [fellow rider] Haydn on our side, I hear he used to be an assassin in Botswana.” (Not really though, it’s all jokes).
Ian said, “Alright we’ll have to have a chat with him.”
Then we continued to rotate through the peloton, we talked to Haydn and got him on board. Then as we continued through the day, the alliance evolved into a Syndicate and everyone was involved and had their own roles within it. (Except for Chris Baratto who said he’s a ‘lone wolf’)
It has continued to evolve, we had a group video call the next day as a Syndicate team meeting. Then on the bikes we discussed whether the Syndicate should unionize and implement a Charter. We’re still waiting for a vote on that one.
There is a lot of emotionally demanding content that sticks with you on as a rider. Whether it’s the lows of someone sharing the loss of a loved one, their own cancer journey, or the highs of visiting a school or going to an event and shaving someone’s head. When we’re out on the road, it’s really the one time that we get to relax, to process, and to make up silly mind games like The Syndicate to try and keep everyone sane through their time spinning in the wonderful whirlwind that is the Tour de Rock.
Daily and overall stats
Total kilometres ridden on Day 7: 76.06 km
Total kilometres ridden: 603.67 km
Total elevation on Day 7: 866 m
Total elevation climbed: 5244 m
Total sodas consumed on Day 7: 5
Total sodas consumed on Tour: 34
