When the Nakusp CICB decided to put together a team for the Ride to Conquer Cancer, branch manager Steven Coulthard wanted to get involved.
“I wanted to do something, and it came up, and it matched with our values and everything at CIBC,” he said.
“I’ve seen the effect of cancer on different people, my father included, so I figured we should try to do something, and do some fundraising, and see if we can get rid of it.”
In order to take part, Coulthard had to raise money. In total, he wound up raising over $2,600, mostly through friends, locals in the community, and businesses.
“People really stepped up. It was pretty amazing.”
Normally, a person can sign up for the ride almost a year in advance, but the team was a little late signing up, with only two months to train before the big event.
“We’f been riding , maybe 20-25 km, and by the end, we had a loop. We would ride up to Summit Lake and then back around town for a bit, and it was usually about 40-45 km in the morning, and then on weekends, we did ride upwards of 130 km. It was a lot of kilometres.” Coulthard said.
He said it was never an easy ride. As he went, he was pushing himself more and more. As he got faster, he pushed himself to go a little faster, cover more of a distance.
“We were building up distances consistently throughout the whole process, so it definitely was never an easy learning curve, or training curve.” he went on.
While the course itself was nice, the weather proved to be anything but. For the first few hours of the ride on day one, there was a torrential downpour, with winds of about 80 km/h.
Quite a few people weren’t able to compete on the first day. The course was shut down shortly after Coulthard finished.
While the second day was beautiful, the winds were just as harsh.
“It was like climbing up a steep hill for the whole time. Pedalling as hard as you could, in your easiest gear, and not really going anywhere very fast.”
Coulthard said it was very challenging, probably the hardest ride he’s ever done. With the wind trying to blow him off his bike, he really had to focus.
The ride was fully supported. Riders mainly had to bring their bikes, jerseys, and shorts.
“Over the first and second day they had a camp set up for us halfway down to Seattle. They provided us with dinner and tents, and stuff like that. It was a pretty great expericene.” he said.
Coulthard said he felt a sense of accomplishment in doing the ride.
“It’s nice to know that I’ve done something to be proud of for cancer research.”
There are potentially plans in the works to do this again next year.
“I haven’t had that confirmed yet, but it’s something that I think will probably turn into an annual event, and try to get more riders to ride with us.” Coulthard concluded.
