Happy and sad....the finish line...

It's been 5 years now that I have been involved with the Wellspring ride.  I'm always feeling conflicted in my final blog post for the event.  The feelings of sadness comes from knowing that this year's event has come to an end. The feeling of sadness that all the riders and volunteers whom we have been connected with will be parting ways...and going back to the reality of life.  We would no longer be immersed in our adventure...on our bikes every day cycling for Wellspring. 

That all said...the feelings of happiness are also overwhelming. The feeling of knowing that my entire family has been involved with a cause that will help others access much valued cancer support services.  This year, we have personally raised over $17,000 for Wellspring.  I also feel happiness for the incredible group of people we have connected with through this event.  The incredible group of people of all ages, all walks of life, all coming together for a single cause - riders and volunteers.  And of course, the awesome feeling of accomplishment once again in completing the long distance cycling to our destination....rain or shine, day or night.  This year especially with all the rain that we had to endure...we did not stop.

Once again, Gail, myself, Ben, and Mya are tremendously grateful for the amazing and continued support we receive from our friends, family, and colleagues.

Some final stats:

• Total kilometres completed personally on this ride:  810
• Total calories according to my bike computer:  27,924
• Average overall speed:  27.7 km/hr
• Top speed on my bike:  72.2 km/hr
• Total elevation:  5,517 meters
• Most distance in a single day:  240 kms on day 1 of the ride

Here's a quick run-down of the last 2 days...

Our second last team ride started in Hattiesburg, MS and finished in Long Beach, MS.  It was dedicated to Anne Armstrong Gibson...it is the 20th anniversary of her passing....she is the founder of Wellspring...and she is also our team-mate Sandy's mother.  It was very meaningful for us to have Sandy on our team, riding in honour of his Mom.

Other memorable parts of today's ride:

• the moment when we were able to see the water....we knew that we were almost there...and amazed on how far we have come
• having our 'guest' cyclist from team 3, Denys, who decided to do 3 relay shifts on this day and a total of 290kms;  we didn't let him stop there however - Will and myself joined him on a ceremonial 11km ride to ensure he finished 301kms for the day!
• and as team 5, we were the last team to arrive at Long Beach, where the rest of the teams were waiting and cheered us into our destination for the day.

My team....cycling next to the water:

Here's what Denys looked like at the 300km mark for the day...still smiling!

Great to have him join our team for today's ride:

  

The final ride for our event is the most unique out of all the days. Instead of 5 separate teams - we all ride together as 1 big group...we all work together to get to our finish line. A full peloton. No relay. 134kms in distance from Long Beach to our finish line in Lafayette Square, New Orleans.

A big group dedication to Wellspring and all the people who benefit from Wellspring was led by my team-mate Will....who is a cancer survivor himself...and who credits Wellspring for helping him with his cancer battle and for him being able to participate in this year's ride.  We were reminded and inspired by our warrior, Doug, whose motto is 'no one fights cancer alone'.  With that, we set off to complete our 6 hour trek along the coast to NOLA.

 Group dedication:

Weather was cool and overcast to start:

Front of the peloton bike selfie!

Group photo at the Louisiana border:

The skies cleared and the sun came out as we entered the city limits of New Orleans:

Finish line team photo at Lafayette Square:

VERY COOL gift to the team from our Wellspring Warrior, Doug:

So awesome to be greeted by all the friends and family at the finish...and especially awesome to be with my awesome wife Gail:

That's all for now.  I will post more photos to my flickr page once I have a chance to upload everything back at home.

-billy

Spectacular Downpours and BIG trucks!

The idea of this ride is that we don't stop. We cover every kilometer from Toronto to New Orleans. People can't take a break from fighting cancer...and neither will we on our ride.

We have had a couple of tough cycling days. Our third shift was from 6am to noon on Tuesday. Ideally, we start in the darkness of the night, and watch the sunrise as we make our way through the planned route. Well...the sun never came out. It was 6 hours of this:

The rain was relentless. It kept coming down. Everything was went....everything. The support from our follow vehicle drivers and motorhome was fantastic to help our team through the shift. Nancy and Steve brought us a very much appreciated breakfast for our first break and Beth, Roger, and Charles ensure the cars on the road knew that there was a cycling group ahead in such conditions.  Team 1 surprised us with coffee and hot chocolate at our last rest break before we finished 115kms near Greeneville, Tennessee.

Take a look at the amount of water on beside us on the road...it was as high as the curb...

Still smiling despite the rain....

The rain did stop....after our ride...and one of our highlights for the day (aside from the opportunity to bike in torrential downpours) was the opportunity to stop into Knoxville for some lunch and a bit of sightseeing:

Our ride on this rainy day was dedicated to Miller, who is Will's wife's cousin living in Vancouver. He's been fighting cancer since April of this year.

The next shift for our team was from noon to 6pm.  Typically, this is the full daytime ride where we get to actually see things along the way.  We started just west of Attalla, Alabama and rode 127kms finishing in the town of Jasper.

Here's was we saw most of the way...lots and lots of traffic....and BIG trucks....

Our follow vehicle is pulled over to the side in the photo above. It's because we need to stop once in a while to let traffic pass to minimize backing everyone up behind us...or drivers doing stupid or dangerous passing. Unfortunately, it meant that we stopped about a billion times over the course of our 6 hours.

The big trucks constantly passing by was also a bit stressful:

We did have a few highlights for the day...we had an opportunity to meet and speak about Wellspring to some nice folks at the Lakewood Senior Living Centre in Jasper. They graciously provided their parking lot for our team transition and wanted to hear more about what we were doing.  Will and myself were voted in to be the spokespeople:

Another highlight was a fantastic local meal at Warehouse 3Nineteen in Jasper:

I have to give kudos to our team mate Eric, who is a driving machine....after the long day and dinner, he drove almost 4 hours to Hattiesburg, Mississippi so that we could be close to our next transition. We arrived around 1am in the morning:

For this past ride....we had a couple of dedications:

To Melanie, who works at Eric's office. Eric was informed that she was diagnosed with cancer a few days ago while on the ride.  She has a tough battle ahead, and we were thinking about her during this day.

To Tony and Sandy, a family friend of Gail and I. Sadly, Tony passed away a few days ago while I was on the ride, and his funeral was today while I was riding our shift.  I was not able to be there...and had them in our thoughts as well.  :(

So far...I have personally cycled 595kms since Saturday at the launch...and our entire team has covered close to 2500kms so far.  Almost to the finish line...

My fundraising is currently just over $17,000....wow!  Thank you to everyone for your support. There's still time to donate if you haven't already:  www.wellspring.ca/billyc

-billy