I had very little sleep last night as I watched the weather reports and worked on the computer building a photo slide show for the team.
Rain, rain, thunder showers, rain...........not very good. Even if I use Marc's formula for being positive it still left me with a 0% chance of sun.
We still went on as scheduled, leaving Milbrook at 10am, pouring down rain. The only blessing is that the temperature was warm, so the rain didn't feel too bad. Not sure about the thunder and lightening in the distance though.
We had 15km's to cover and we were using highway 115 as the route. Our final ride in always ends up traveling down highway 115 to Peterborough. Police vehicles on all sides of us we cruised along the wet roads at 40km per hour. Water spraying off the bikes like they were jet ski's. Surprisingly the ride was fun and fast, despite the weather conditions.
Today we were joined by 4 guest from Shimano Canada. Greg, Ben, Stu, and Phil have been sponsoring the team since we began. If it wasn't for these guys, and the rest of the staff at Shimano, we would never have become as successful as we are. Thanks Guys !!!!!!
As we arrived at the Memorial Centre the rain was coming down so hard you could not see the bike in front of you. It was crazy. We spent a next few hours insode the Memorial Centre with our special friends and their families.
Due to safety reasons it was decided not to continue with any of the festivities at Del Crary Park. Everyone joined us at the Memorial Centre and even though it was raining, we still had a great time.
A huge thanks to John Preston and the staff of the Memorial Centre for allowing us to camp out with our crew.
John
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Friday, May 8, 2009
The Final School Day
It's hard to believe that the tour is coming to an end. We have had so many great times and created thousands of memories and now it's ending for another year.
We started off with another rare appearance off our scheduled route. due to scheduling conflicts we were back in Peterborough to visitJames Strath P.S before heading out to Milbrook.
Our day started off with being joined by 3 special guest. The first 2 guest are members of our Western Pedal For Hope team in London Ontario. Don from the London Police Service and Terry from the Ontario Provincial Police spent the first 4 hours of their morning driving from London so they could ride with the team. Our other guest was one of our Special Friends, Ajay.
There is nothing like a super high energy show and some ice cream at 9am to get the students hyper for the rest of the day. What I didn't know about this day is there was some plotting and planning behind the scenes, courtesy of my dear sweet friend Mary from the Canadian Cancer Society.
For those who were not involved I will quickly rewind a couple of days and give you the scoop on how this all started. You see, in the past the team has been know to grab an un-suspecting audience member and bring them up to the front of the school for a little ice cream eating contest. the fun part of that is, once we hand cuff them they rarely get any ice cream in their mouth. The team, okay....maybe just me, smears ice cream all over their face. the kids love it.
Over the last few years we have smeared teachers, police officers, principals and yes, even some Canadian Cancer Society officials. So this year I think everyone coming to see our show was a little on edge thinking they may be called upon to be the victim of a long standing team tradition.
Okay, so now fast forward to this years tour. After some threats, dares and challenges between Mary and I it was decided at the first school, without me knowing, that the team was going to hand cuff me and Mary was going to do the honours of 'smearing' me. So the entire time we were at James Strath, this planning was going on in the background until finally common sense prevailed. You see getting smeared with ice cream is not bad, but having to go all day with sticky melted ice cream all over your cycling gear is.
So it did not take place, but again without me knowing..........(and yes I am the captain, so you would think I would know everything, but this was not the case) the planning was still in the works.
We were off to Milbrook and our second stop was at Milbrook P.S. It was a great ride to Milbrook except for 2 things, the giant hill you have to climb to get into Milbrook, followed by the giant hill you have to climb to get out of Milbrook. Funny how that works, it's like milbrook is in this giant crater.
Our final stop of the day was at North Cavan, where again we climbed a giant hill to get to the school. We were greeted outside by all the students, staff and one more special friend, Tommy was right up front as the team rode in.
A group of students entertained us with a touching poem about the team and the staff treated us with a celebration lunch as they do every year since we began the tour.
I between the poem and the celebration meal the ice cream smearing plot that started in the morning finally took place, but had an interesting twist. Mary appeared at the front of the gym and I was called up to have an ice cream show down. What Mary didn't expect is her plan was about to back fire on her. All the time she was expecting the hand cuffs to be put on me, but they were put on her and I proceeded to keep tradition alive by smearing ice cream all over her. She did get some help from the team because I was also smeared with ice cream, so I guess we both ended up sticky at the end of the day. Ha Ha.
It was all in good fun and Mary is a great sport.
John
We started off with another rare appearance off our scheduled route. due to scheduling conflicts we were back in Peterborough to visitJames Strath P.S before heading out to Milbrook.
Our day started off with being joined by 3 special guest. The first 2 guest are members of our Western Pedal For Hope team in London Ontario. Don from the London Police Service and Terry from the Ontario Provincial Police spent the first 4 hours of their morning driving from London so they could ride with the team. Our other guest was one of our Special Friends, Ajay.
There is nothing like a super high energy show and some ice cream at 9am to get the students hyper for the rest of the day. What I didn't know about this day is there was some plotting and planning behind the scenes, courtesy of my dear sweet friend Mary from the Canadian Cancer Society.
For those who were not involved I will quickly rewind a couple of days and give you the scoop on how this all started. You see, in the past the team has been know to grab an un-suspecting audience member and bring them up to the front of the school for a little ice cream eating contest. the fun part of that is, once we hand cuff them they rarely get any ice cream in their mouth. The team, okay....maybe just me, smears ice cream all over their face. the kids love it.
Over the last few years we have smeared teachers, police officers, principals and yes, even some Canadian Cancer Society officials. So this year I think everyone coming to see our show was a little on edge thinking they may be called upon to be the victim of a long standing team tradition.
Okay, so now fast forward to this years tour. After some threats, dares and challenges between Mary and I it was decided at the first school, without me knowing, that the team was going to hand cuff me and Mary was going to do the honours of 'smearing' me. So the entire time we were at James Strath, this planning was going on in the background until finally common sense prevailed. You see getting smeared with ice cream is not bad, but having to go all day with sticky melted ice cream all over your cycling gear is.
So it did not take place, but again without me knowing..........(and yes I am the captain, so you would think I would know everything, but this was not the case) the planning was still in the works.
We were off to Milbrook and our second stop was at Milbrook P.S. It was a great ride to Milbrook except for 2 things, the giant hill you have to climb to get into Milbrook, followed by the giant hill you have to climb to get out of Milbrook. Funny how that works, it's like milbrook is in this giant crater.
Our final stop of the day was at North Cavan, where again we climbed a giant hill to get to the school. We were greeted outside by all the students, staff and one more special friend, Tommy was right up front as the team rode in.
A group of students entertained us with a touching poem about the team and the staff treated us with a celebration lunch as they do every year since we began the tour.
I between the poem and the celebration meal the ice cream smearing plot that started in the morning finally took place, but had an interesting twist. Mary appeared at the front of the gym and I was called up to have an ice cream show down. What Mary didn't expect is her plan was about to back fire on her. All the time she was expecting the hand cuffs to be put on me, but they were put on her and I proceeded to keep tradition alive by smearing ice cream all over her. She did get some help from the team because I was also smeared with ice cream, so I guess we both ended up sticky at the end of the day. Ha Ha.
It was all in good fun and Mary is a great sport.
John
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Rainy Day Turns Sunny
Today we started our day just outside of Port Hope, we have 2 days to go before the final ride in. I have been watching the weather reports closely for the last 48 hours and it's not looking good. Marc Habgood has been trying to change the way I think about the weather predictions. Every time I go to him and say "the weather is calling for 70% chance of rain" he always looks at me and says "T, that means there is a 30% chance of sun". As much as I laugh I still can't help but be a little concerned as the rain splashes down into the puddles on the road.
I had to put it out of my mind for today, nothing could be done about it and nobody could change the weather, so I thought.
Our second stop of the day was at Howard Jordan P.S where we always take great pleasure in meeting up with a true honourary special friend of the team. A cancer survivor who we affectionately know as 'Sunny'. You can call it coincidence, you can call it spiritual, whatever your beliefs in todays world it was an awesome feeling for the rain to come to a complete stop as we rolled into Howard Jordan P.S as we looked over, 'Sunny' was waving and smiling at the team. For 5 years she has been attending the school to support her children as they raised money for Pedal For Hope. Now her children have moved on to other schools but 'Sunny' still comes to Howard Jordan every year to support the team. To show our appreciation, this year she was presented with a plaque acknowledging her continued support. It was hard not to get choked up as her eyes welled up. Even now I am getting choked up just typing this, remembering how tight she hugged me and thanked the team for doing what we do. She is a survivor who is a true inspiration to anyone fighting this deadly disease.
Our third stop of the day was in Bowmanville, about 25km's away and only a little over an hour to get there. This was our first time entering into Durham Region, it was a great feeling to know that the team's fight was expanding into different areas of the province.
As we arrived at the school I was amazed at the size of Holy Family Catholic School. It was huge, I have not seen so many students standing outside the school, lining both sides of the parking lot. They had signs and cards and poems and were cheering the team on as we rode in. Students shaved their heads, cut their pony tails, and dyed their hair all different colours to support the team. At the end of the day Michelle, Amy and all the students presented the team with over $10,000. It was un-believable !!!!!
What a great day.
John
I had to put it out of my mind for today, nothing could be done about it and nobody could change the weather, so I thought.
Our second stop of the day was at Howard Jordan P.S where we always take great pleasure in meeting up with a true honourary special friend of the team. A cancer survivor who we affectionately know as 'Sunny'. You can call it coincidence, you can call it spiritual, whatever your beliefs in todays world it was an awesome feeling for the rain to come to a complete stop as we rolled into Howard Jordan P.S as we looked over, 'Sunny' was waving and smiling at the team. For 5 years she has been attending the school to support her children as they raised money for Pedal For Hope. Now her children have moved on to other schools but 'Sunny' still comes to Howard Jordan every year to support the team. To show our appreciation, this year she was presented with a plaque acknowledging her continued support. It was hard not to get choked up as her eyes welled up. Even now I am getting choked up just typing this, remembering how tight she hugged me and thanked the team for doing what we do. She is a survivor who is a true inspiration to anyone fighting this deadly disease.
Our third stop of the day was in Bowmanville, about 25km's away and only a little over an hour to get there. This was our first time entering into Durham Region, it was a great feeling to know that the team's fight was expanding into different areas of the province.
As we arrived at the school I was amazed at the size of Holy Family Catholic School. It was huge, I have not seen so many students standing outside the school, lining both sides of the parking lot. They had signs and cards and poems and were cheering the team on as we rode in. Students shaved their heads, cut their pony tails, and dyed their hair all different colours to support the team. At the end of the day Michelle, Amy and all the students presented the team with over $10,000. It was un-believable !!!!!
What a great day.
John
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
McHappy Day
Busy day for the team today. We had our usual riding to do, visited 3 schools and than it was off to Peterborough to join in on McHappy Day.
Our day started off at 6am as usual, once on the bikes we rode into Grant Sine P.S where the students gave us a thunderous reception. We than left Cobourg behind and rode to Plainville P.S in Gores Landing. The students were excited to see us and waited in line for autographs, treating the team like rock stars. I always feel weird when a student comes up and hands me a piece of paper and a pencil and says "Can I get your autograph". Not too many people can say that happens to them every day. one of these times I am going to turn around and hand a piece of paper back to the kid and say "no, but I would love to have your autograph" These kids are and always will be the true heroes of the team.
Our next stop of the day was at South Monaghan P.S before packing up and heading back to Peterborough.
About 3 months ago the team received a great phone call from Angel Post, marketing & media relations director for McDonalds. She advised the team that Jamie Campbell, the local owner of 9 McDonalds franchises had decided that the 2009 McHappy Day campaign would be dedicated to Pedal For Hope. It goes without saying that the team was ecstatic to hear the news.
So the team headed back to Peterborough to help out at the local McDonalds restaurants. I use the term 'Help' out fairly loosely because when 13 team members converge on the store, helping out is not always accurate. Its more like chaos for the staff and customers. The teams guest appearance at three locations was not just standing around shaking hands and waving. We pretty much took over and worked our magic. The team had a great time making burgers, fries and ice cream deserts. We even had the Pedal For Hope bear causing havoc in the drive thru line.
I would like to send out a special thank you to Angel, Jamie, and the entire staff of the McDonalds corporation for dedicating this year to us and having so much patience while we were in their store.
John
Our day started off at 6am as usual, once on the bikes we rode into Grant Sine P.S where the students gave us a thunderous reception. We than left Cobourg behind and rode to Plainville P.S in Gores Landing. The students were excited to see us and waited in line for autographs, treating the team like rock stars. I always feel weird when a student comes up and hands me a piece of paper and a pencil and says "Can I get your autograph". Not too many people can say that happens to them every day. one of these times I am going to turn around and hand a piece of paper back to the kid and say "no, but I would love to have your autograph" These kids are and always will be the true heroes of the team.
Our next stop of the day was at South Monaghan P.S before packing up and heading back to Peterborough.
About 3 months ago the team received a great phone call from Angel Post, marketing & media relations director for McDonalds. She advised the team that Jamie Campbell, the local owner of 9 McDonalds franchises had decided that the 2009 McHappy Day campaign would be dedicated to Pedal For Hope. It goes without saying that the team was ecstatic to hear the news.
So the team headed back to Peterborough to help out at the local McDonalds restaurants. I use the term 'Help' out fairly loosely because when 13 team members converge on the store, helping out is not always accurate. Its more like chaos for the staff and customers. The teams guest appearance at three locations was not just standing around shaking hands and waving. We pretty much took over and worked our magic. The team had a great time making burgers, fries and ice cream deserts. We even had the Pedal For Hope bear causing havoc in the drive thru line.
I would like to send out a special thank you to Angel, Jamie, and the entire staff of the McDonalds corporation for dedicating this year to us and having so much patience while we were in their store.
John
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Our Final Week
Well I haven't been able to complete my blog last week due to other team commitments so I am going to try to wrap everything up in one or two more blog entries.
We started week 3 heading to Warkworth and Brighton. The first stop was at Percy Centennial school, stops 2& 3 were in Brighton. The ride was awesome, especially heading into Brighton where once you cross over the 401 you begin a downward ride for 5km's. It was very fast and very fun.
Once we arrived in Brighton we attended East Northumberland Secondary School and joined in on their 'Relay For Life' assembly. The students were pumped up and I know they are going to do great things for the Canadian Cancer Society.
Our second day took us to South Cramahe, Cloborne, and Cobourg. The weather was great, the students were excited to see us and the fund raising was awesome. The students worked so hard to raise money for Pediatric cancer research, they are true heroes in our books.
John
We started week 3 heading to Warkworth and Brighton. The first stop was at Percy Centennial school, stops 2& 3 were in Brighton. The ride was awesome, especially heading into Brighton where once you cross over the 401 you begin a downward ride for 5km's. It was very fast and very fun.
Once we arrived in Brighton we attended East Northumberland Secondary School and joined in on their 'Relay For Life' assembly. The students were pumped up and I know they are going to do great things for the Canadian Cancer Society.
Our second day took us to South Cramahe, Cloborne, and Cobourg. The weather was great, the students were excited to see us and the fund raising was awesome. The students worked so hard to raise money for Pediatric cancer research, they are true heroes in our books.
John
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Lakefield Day
The team didn't have much sleep last night but that didn't stop us from riding into Lakefield for our annual community BBQ. We have to thank Larry Taylor and his Lakefield Lions for organizing and cooking all the delicious food. We also have to thank Ross and Ian Bledsoe from Lakefield IGA for donating all the food and allowing us to camp out in front of their store for a few hours.
You guys are great and we really appreciate the support !!!
You guys are great and we really appreciate the support !!!
Friday, May 1, 2009
Mid Life Crisis Rocks The Junction
Friday continued after the ride to the Junction in Peterborough where we rocked the night away.
Uniform Charlie took to the stage to open for the headliner, Mid Life Crisis. They are awesome, they are talented, and they are generous. They do it for the cause, and have always been proud supporters of Pedal For Hope. I will wear my band T-Shirt with pride, because as much as they support us, we appreciate and support them.
Around 10pm Mid Life Crisis went on stage and rocked the house down. Seven hundred people went crazy for the next 3 hours as the band sang every rock'in tune you could think of. It was awesome.
A the end of the night Mid Life Crisis, Uniform Charlie, and the Junction raised alot of money for Pedal For Hope and the Canadian Cancer Society. Just how much you ask.......well you will have to come to the final ride in May 9th at Del Crary Park to find out. The bands will be presenting us with a cheque and announcing their total for their first Pedal For Hope concert.
Stay Tuned !!!
Uniform Charlie took to the stage to open for the headliner, Mid Life Crisis. They are awesome, they are talented, and they are generous. They do it for the cause, and have always been proud supporters of Pedal For Hope. I will wear my band T-Shirt with pride, because as much as they support us, we appreciate and support them.
Around 10pm Mid Life Crisis went on stage and rocked the house down. Seven hundred people went crazy for the next 3 hours as the band sang every rock'in tune you could think of. It was awesome.
A the end of the night Mid Life Crisis, Uniform Charlie, and the Junction raised alot of money for Pedal For Hope and the Canadian Cancer Society. Just how much you ask.......well you will have to come to the final ride in May 9th at Del Crary Park to find out. The bands will be presenting us with a cheque and announcing their total for their first Pedal For Hope concert.
Stay Tuned !!!
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