Calgary's John McWhae will try to be the first to ride bike across Alberta in one day, raising money for arthritis along the way.--SUBMITTED PHOTO
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A Calgary man is starting a 380-kilometre, cross-Alberta bike ride at 6 a.m. today with goals of raising awareness for arthritis and raising funds for Two Wheel View’s Full Cycle program, which brings a 10-week bike club experience to Indigenous communities that surround Calgary.
John McWhae, 59, has always loved to ride his bike. He was diagnosed with arthritis more than 40 years ago and says he went through a period of 10 years where he couldn’t ride a bike. However, he’s now built his own recumbent bike which he will ride across the province in one day.
He is starting near Crowsnest Pass at the Alberta-B.C. border and finishing in Walsh.
“If you have arthritis and you exercise appropriately, you can do a ton of stuff and you’ll probably do better, which is certainly the case for me,” said McWhae. “Part of the message is to create awareness for the McCaig Institute for Bone and Joint Health in Calgary and they’re doing a big study on what’s good for joint health over a lifetime and exercise is becoming more and more recommended in arthritis, so that’s a whole aspect of it.”
McWhae has been coached and will be virtually coached throughout his ride by his coach Greg Kolodziejzyk, who holds the world record for distance travelled on land and water in 24 hours. Accompanying McWhae for the ride are seven people supporting three vehicles, he said.
The cyclist will be making his way through Medicine Hat on Highway 120 around 3-4 p.m., he says, after cycling through Lethbridge.
The idea for the bike ride was born more than 10 years ago, he says. McWhae says the timing never worked out, but he got into a minor car accident early in the pandemic and had a look at the World Ultra Cycling Association website to see nobody has recorded a cross-Alberta bike ride yet and he could still be the first. After he recovered, he did a 300-kilometre ride near the mountains and it was a success.
“When that went well, I thought I’m going to give this a try. I sort of figured better late than never,” he said with a laugh.
McWhae has already fundraised $9,805 of his $40,000 goal to be awarded to Two Wheel View.
“The program he is supporting is an in-school bike club that we run for 10 weeks and we teach bike mechanics, along with social emotional learning skills, team building and different types of really valuable life skills and then they earn a bicycle, a lock and a helmet when they’re done the program,” said Laura Istead, executive director of Two Wheel View.
She says they want to offer this program to as many young people as possible because bikes give young people freedom and the opportunity to ride toward something or away from things that are troubling them.
“We really want to be able to provide opportunities for youth, particularly those that face barriers to participating in the bicycle community and the bicycle world, equal opportunity to be able to participate and discover a joy of cycling for themselves,” she said. “Certainly, Indigenous peoples and other people of colour are less represented in the cycling community, so we want to change that.”
McWhae says he and his team wanted to support Indigenous people and the idea was born after talks with Two Wheel View.
To donate to McWhae’s Two Wheel View fundraiser visit https://www.canadahelps.org/en/dn/61682.
