Last Friday a group of 37 riders left Westlock for Barrhead during the final leg of the 2014 cycleforward tour, and to say spirits were high would be an understatement.
While I was only able to join the riders for a brief part of the trip, turning around and heading back to Westlock just past Hazel Bluff Hall, it didn’t take long to realize there’s a lot of truth in the cycleforward motto.
“When we move together, anything is possible.”
And many of the riders I spoke to Friday morning felt much the same way.
Cycleforward is in its second year — the 2013 ride took place on Vancouver Island — and the proceeds from this year’s event are going to help support a new pool in Barrhead and to help purchase specialized equipment for Trina Preugschas, whose goal of walking away from her wheelchair helped to inspire this event.
Preugschas said the idea of the ride, and being able to move together, is a really significant one for her.
“I feel it’s a totally different experience when it’s about interacting with others,” she said. “Having experiences together is when the magic happens.”
She has spent time riding with friends in her home of Victoria, B.C., and experienced the energy a large group-ride creates last year. But this year’s ride has reinforced the idea that while there’s satisfaction in accomplishing things alone, it’s better in a group.
“What I’ve realized this trip even more is being together for that long changes things,” she said. “People get to know each other who have never met, and people come together more. It’s a totally different experience.”
I’ve spent enough time riding my bike by myself to know how satisfying it is to ride that extra kilometre, or shave a minute off your time going around Westlock Rotary Trail, but in the brief time I got to ride with the group, Preugschas’s words rang true.
Westlock resident Gail Huff signed on for the trip, without really knowing anyone else who was involved. She told me she set out on the ride — the longest one she’s taken in many years — with the goal of simply proving to herself she could do it.
Over the course of the five days, however, it became more about being part of the group than her own individual goals, even though being in the group helped her achieve those goals.
“I’m not saying it was easy to do, but there was something about the thrill of doing it,” she said. “It’s a group of really interesting people. We all stay on the same beat and everybody gets into the same rhythm.”
There is a real inherent value in taking part in a group journey like the cycleforward ride, because moving together is in so many ways better than being by yourself — especially in a world where people get increasingly compartmentalized behind their computer and smart-phone screens.
“We live in a world where we don’t have to talk to people if we don’t want to,” Huff said. “We live in a technological world where you don’t have to get out your doors.”
Westlock town Coun. Curtis Snell also took the opportunity to ride as far as Hazel Bluff with the group, and said he’s thrilled organizers chose the Town of Westlock as one of the stopping points.
He recently completed a Jasper-to-Banff road trip with the R.F. Staples Grade 12 class, and said the experience riding with that group is one he won’t soon forget. The cycleforward motto is apt, as far as he’s concerned — it’s in so many ways better to move together than alone.
“With a group you kind of, not push each other, but you motivate each other to keep going,” he said.
“On that mountain trip, that’s exactly what happened. Everybody encouraged everybody. It doesn’t matter if you’re in good or in bad shape.”
As an added bonus, the opportunity to enjoy the scenery at bicycle speeds rather than a motor vehicle’s highway speeds is in and of itself worthwhile.
“There’s different scenery of course than what you would see in the mountains, but you’re going a lot slower and you see a lot more than when you’re driving down the road at 100 km/h,” he said.
Rider Peter Ogden travelled to Alberta from California to take part in the event; he knows Preugschas because his partner Andrea is a physical therapist who worked with her following the June 1997 collision that left her wheelchair-bound.
He said there are some limitations to riding in a group, but it’s more than worth it for the experience.
“An event like this makes it obvious that the rewards of suffering through the needs of a group far outweigh the cost,” he said. “When you can relate to and experience people, it grows in value.”
As for the idea that when moving together anything can happen, he’s convinced.
“With determination you can do most things yourself,” he said. “With cooperation, you can do anything.”
And it’s true. It’s not likely I would have taken my bike on the highway and pushed myself to ride 25 kilometres by myself — it took the cooperation of a group ride to get me in the saddle that long.
But now that I know I can do it, there’s nothing stopping me from doing it again.
For more information about cycleforward, visit www.cycleforward.ca or look up cycleforward on Facebook.
