It’s hard to believe Tour’s already here – we head up to Port Alice in 17 days. The team, as a whole, is a far cry from where it was on March 4 for our first leisurely ride along the Goose. Since then we’ve, together as a team, rode up (and down!) Mount Washington, rode the unbelievably long, windy, hole-laden road from Saanich to Jordan River and back (some 140-plus kilometres), and we’ve become incredibly close, as friends and equals. In total, we’ve racked up nearly 200 hours of training already, we’ve travelled some 3,400 kilometres, and met so many amazing people along the way. And now, as the training gears down (there are only 5 rides left before we head out on Tour), I’m anxious knowing (and not knowing about) the incredible things to come for this team.

What we are doing, we know, is not about us. It’s about something much greater than we are, and something more important than any one of us (except Matt Webb). We all ride to save the lives of kids living with cancer. It’s that simple. Every pedal stroke we take is another step closer, another dollar raised, toward curing a disease that cruelly targets people young and old. The experience of Tour is one that no former Tour de Rock rider can put into words (or so I’ve been told). The emotions from meeting the parents who lost their newborn to cancer at two weeks old, and the thrills of meeting the bubbly seven-year-old who’s been in remission for six years, are what Tour is about. We are riding for them. I can’t even begin to express how much I am looking forward to meeting hundreds of people, and hearing hundreds of stories, and giving them all the time of day they deserve to be heard. It’s that experience of Tour – not the biking, not the fatigue – that I’m anticipating.