Nov. 23, 2023 Cycling from montreal to ottawa
1st Bike Ride
Our first event fundraiser bike ride was challenging. I felt I rushed this ride and event, and it showed because the time of the year I chose was not ideal, so let that represent that something important is worth doing regardless if it is not the most comfortable. I feel this failure/incompletion was more of a success than not doing this ride at all.
I, Alan Johnson (CEO, on the left), and Nicholas Sinoyannis (Treasurer, on the right) met up early in the morning to give ourselves all the daylight hours that were available to us despite the cloud coverage that persisted throughout the entire day. In a vacuum, cloudy weather is more ideal, because minimizes the heat we feel, and so does our technology, and it provides more optimal visibility, which makes it easier to cycle and easier for drivers to pass around us more safely. We had a moments of drizzling, and it warmed up near the end. In the beginning the pot holes in Montreal caused the front bike wheel to partially dislodge from the fork, so I lost 10 minutes correcting it. Cycling in the west direction allows us to chase the sun as it was setting, however the wind was also chasing us, the whole time, combined with the extra gear I wore, made it feel like I was wearing a parachute. We stopped our journey around 4:15pm, when it was already dark, as if it were 11pm at the peak of summer in Montreal, because of a safety concern due to surrounding cars not being able to always see us, despite myself having lights on my bike and the car having its hazard lights on while following at cycling pace.
A few things I have learned, are when you think you have planned every detail out, ask someone else for their perspective, because we as humans develop tunnel vision the more we work on a given passion project as an example. This helps us reopen our mind and consider new angles that seem obvious to one person and not the other. I also learned to be content that we put in the effort to attempt a losing battle because if you can fight a battle you know you’re losing, just imagine how you’ll fight for a battle where the odds are in your favour and you are eager to see it through.
Also I will be referring the team members of Bricks4Hope as members of the 1024th legion, which I am founding because I see us working as a unit similar to how clone troopers operate, and because I am a massive Star Wars nerd.
*On the bottom, you can view the actual ride that took place versus the planned ride for the date, below the actual ride.
We also want to give a big thank you to RBC, GoDaddy, TrimPlus, & Cycles Saint-Laurent for making this ride possible.
More Images can be found at the bottom of this page, where all images will be added soon.
