I am 56 years young and married to a beautiful lady, Christine.
As well as cycling, I enjoy snowboarding and barefoot water skiing.
I believe that of all my past experiences, nothing will compare to this ride. This will take a team effort, my family for the support, my fundraising team and you, my sponsors.
We are all doing this for the kids,
Blog Archive
This is Ken Cross’s, our team leaders home town. Today
we ride for his daughter Megan, She along with his other
2 daughters are real cuties.
This was also a real special day form me in that Christine
came to see me, I haven’t seen her in 2 weeks. She is my
special person and without her support through all of this
I would not have been able to do this ride.
There is a lot of effort put in by all of the riders and
some days it hurts, but it is not even remotely close to
what the kids and families go through while battling this
disease. So even on a bad day I know that I just have to
‘suck it up’.
One of our stops was in Smith Falls today and some long time
friends, Guy and Evette were there to see us. It was great.
From Smith Falls we went to Trois Riviere. Here we said our
good byes to Josh and his Mom and Dad. There were a lot tears
and some laughs. I will remember this time forever.
All 3 teams started the day in Woodstock were
we were joined by several ride along riders.
There were a few speaches from the Mayor as well
as from members of the Coast to Coast organization.
We also heard from families that are dealing with
this horrible disease.
We rode to Brantford Burlington, where Josh made
another impressive speech, and Oakville
picking up additional ride along riders along the
way. I am guessing that in total there may have
been up to 500 riders in all. It was an impressive
site to see as all the riders converged on Sherway
gardens.
This was also special for me as Marijana, Jackie,
Susan and Phil came out to support and wish me well
for the rest of the journey. I was deeply touched.
We had breakfast in tobermary our dedication
was for Melodina from Shelbourne. This young
girl had passed away at the age of 17 in 2008
Due to us having the Tandem it was decided that
team 1 would leave 5 to 10 min before us. The
ride was relatively flat but lots of the
pavement for the first 25K had been stripped so
it was very dificult to ride. But riding was still
much better than being shuttled.
For Josh and Drew many it was great, this was
there first cneturey ride (160K) as well as the
furthest they had been on a tandem.
That evening we were treated to a spa by Melanie.
It was awesome, cold water pools, saunas, and
hot tubs. Talk about being spoiled. The spa was
in Collingwood.
What a morning. We got to our bunk early hours of
the morning but had to move as the location we
were in could not accomodate all of our vehicles.
We were also informed that the major part of our
riding would be through heavy construction areas.
A decision was made that instead of riding we would
shuttle to the ferry so that we would not have to
expeience he delay’s on our bike and we would not
have to sit around in wet gear.
The ferry ride was good but due to the wind we had
a bit of a bouncy ride. We were met her by team 1
and had seperate dinners and a combined breakfast.
We woke up in a park in Nipigon this morning. It was
very cold. This was also the day that Drew and Josh
a 7 year cancer survivor were joining our team. They
were riding a tandem bike together
Josh is 16 years old and has a great personality. He
stayed with us in our motor home for the shuttle and
we cam to discover that he was also very witty and We
were not going to slip anything by him.
On this day we found that the hills in Northern Ont
are actually more challenging than the rockies
themself.
We rode for a 154K and we climbed 5,000 ft. with some
climbs being in excss of 2K long.
This day did not start out to good. We arrived at our
bunk truck at about 4:30 am. When we were awakened a
few hours later we found that the legion had not made
arrangements for our breakfast as planned. We had to
make alternate arrangements and those where the Golden
arches.
Our dedication this day was for Joanne from Fort Frances
We were able to ride 110K this day before lunch.
This evening we had a dinner at a legion, We had a past
meal which was very satisfying.
After our showers we were able to all shower in a good
time. This shortened our shuttle ime to the bunk truck…
We have come toghether well as team,
Monday morning we woke up in Wawanessa. Very small town.
We used the Lions hall for our morning washroom break
as well as breakfast. There was only 1 washroom for 25
people so needless to say it took some time to get us
all ready to go.
From there we rode to Cypress River, the wind was at our
back so we were able to average a speed of 33K per hour.
From there we rode to a town called St Claude. We had
our lunch there. After lunch we stopped in at the St.
Claude elementry school and fielded some questions as to
what we were doing etc. After this we played some soccer
with the grade 7 and 8s.It was a blast.
We then rode into Winnipeg with another police escort
for about 25k. It was great here as one of our riders,
Mathew, is a Winnepeg boy and a long time cancer
survivor, he was honored here, we all felt so proud of
him.
Another $20,000 was raised her at the inside ride.
Great job by all.
Sorry everyone but I am very behind in my blogs mostly because I couldn’t my PC charged.
On the 9th we did our wheel dip and at White Rock, it was a cold start but it was great. I will add some pictures later. We had a number of stops and one memorable stop was in Langley were we heard the words of Patrick Sullivan who lost one of his twin sons to cancer. He made an incredible statement ‘Cancer doesn’t define kids, it reveals who they are’.
On the 10th we woke up in Vernon. Vernon is the home of the junior A team, Vernon Vipers. The breakfast there was donated by the fund raising at the City Hall. This day we rode for Lindsay and Philip. Our total days ride was 161 k with stops in Salmonarm (not sure if this is 2 words) and the enchated forest. From there we rode to Revelstock were we were treated to an incredible meal in a real restuarant. We had some major climbs. I know it is still early but I am feeling good.
The sights are incredible, the only shame is that we are unable to capture these on camera.
Saturday our day started in Calgary, it was awesome for me, Jamie and Clayton, my brother and sister in law came to see us. They were there at 6:30. We had bad luck with a few flats but still had some great riding and averages of 29k for the day. We are totaly jelling as a team. @meals on this day were put on at Sears stores, we are not starving.
Stayed tuned, I have to log off now as we are leaving and I will soon loose this connection. But before I go, I am thinking of you all and having a blast.
We woke in Moosejaw this morning were the Sears folks
there put on a great breakfast.
Our dedication this morning was for Helene’s (fellow
rider) father who is battling bain cancer.
It was a great ride into Regina with a little show from
Tom who trying to stop hit a pot hole and did a flip
over his handle bars, thankfully he was not hurt. We had
a police escort across town to the Sears whole home
store. Met Mike Penno there along with his family.
After we left there we rode another 20 K or so to a
Huskey truck stop. We decided that this was not a good
place to shave our legs.
Found a cool snake today, a piece of banana wrapped in
in a petta shell that had nutella spread on it.
