Take the Lane

More about the evolution of Bike and Hike for Heart, to just Hike for Heart

Peter Sweeney, the president of the St. Mary's Hospital Foundation, got back to me about this year's change of the Bike and Hike for Heart to just Hike for Heart.

As mentioned in the previous post, Manulife Financial did a lot of the heavy lifting for the Bike and Hike for Heart over the years, and it wasn't just about the teams and the volunteers who staffed the tents and refuelling stations. Sweeney said that Manulife made it possible for 100 per cent of the money pledged to go to the hospital's regional cardiac care centre.

When Manulife pulled out of the Bike and Hike to throw its volunteer muscle behind the LPGA Classic (the St. Mary's Foundation benefited from the LPGA last year with a hefty $250,000 cheque from the Manulife golf event), the hospital foundation was unable to attract a signature partner to take up the slack. Basically, said Sweeney, 100 per cent of the money pledged would not be able to go to the cardiac care centre, if the organizing group had to cover the costs of the bike/hike event.

But, Sweeney said, the committee understood the commitment of the red-shirted Hearts in Motion team -- those 130 to 160 people who were clients of the cardiac care centre. Almost all of them have been walkers for previous Bike and Hike for Heart events. And they alone have been able to raise between $40,000 and $60,000.

So, the down-sized Hike for Heart stays; the biking part goes.

Sweeney says there will be an indoor bike event for the cycling crowd in February 2014, a prime time for heart-related fundraising since every February is Heart Month.

And to qualify my earlier comment indoor cycling and boredom, my sister-in-law instructs at a Calgary spin company, and her classes are anything but boring. And a number of my Facebook friends tout the team-building of Inside Ride events.

I stand corrected.

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Biking dropped from Bike and Hike for Heart

Biking dropped from Bike and Hike for Heart

Bit of a surprise to read this morning that the St. Mary's Hospital Foundation is dropping the cycling portion of its spring fundraiser for the regional cardiac care centre.

Once known as the Manulife Bike for Heart, then the Manulife Bike and Hike for Heart, the event lost Manulife last year when the insurance company decided to focus on the June LPGA event as a fundraiser (which last year still benefited St. Mary's Hospital).

This year, the organizers have dropped the cycling portion and renamed the event, Hike for Heart (2013). It has shifted from early in June to Sunday, June 23, and will be held again at Waterloo Park.

I wondered whither this event after Manulife withdrew its major sponsorship. Manulife volunteers had staffed the tents and lined the routes, and Manulife teams had predominated among the corporate challenge teams. Their diminished profile was evident last year.

I can see how a walking event would be easier to handle: shorter routes, fewer police requirements, likely on sidewalks and walking trails rather than roads, etc.

But I'm really disappointed to see this event -- that used to be the first big cycling fundraiser of the season in Waterloo Region -- disappear from the calendar. Those people who want to cycle will likely switch their loyalties to the Cambridge Tour de Grand, although the charitable fundraising aspect is basically lost.

If you have been putting pressure on your co-workers or bosses to sponsor you for a ride in the Bike and Hike for Heart (because they put the touch on you for some other charity fundraiser), you'll have to find another venue.

Or you could leave the bike at home and join the St. Mary's walking event. Nothing wrong with walking.

St. Mary's promises that there will be a cycling event in 2014, in February. Frankly, if it's a spinning event, I can't see it being a big draw. Look up "boring" in the dictionary and I'm pretty sure "bicycling inside" is on the list of definitions. If it's an outside icicle bicycle event, that would be another story...

What a loss for Bike and Hike for Heart

The organizers for the St. Mary's Hospital Bike and Hike for Heart today should get full points for enthusiasm in the face of a freezing cold morning for a fundraising bike ride, low turnout and poor receipts.

Apparently, it was right in front of my eyes that the longtime signature sponsor, Manulife Financial, had withdrawn from the event that benefits the regional cardiac care centre at St. Mary's. I knew the date of the event was changing for this year, the 20th anniversary of the ride; I posted on the change back in February. What I thought at the time, was that while Manulife had switched its volunteer energies and support to the Ladies Professional Golf Association event in June, that the highly committed Manulife volunteers would continue to turn out for the Bike and Hike's new Sept. 23 date.

The proceeds from the June LPGA event -- a whopping $250,000 -- went to St. Mary's and the Regional Cardiac Care Centre: great news for St. Mary's and very generous on the part of Manulife. I continued to assume that Manulife would continue their grassroots involvement with the bike/hike event.

Supporting that misperception was the use on the Bike and Hike home page of photos of people wearing the "Manulife Bike and Hike, Be a Heart Hero" T-shirts. Even when you register online, you are given the option of identifying which Manulife team you are with.

I arrived late enough this morning to miss the introductory remarks and grabbed a yogurt and went out to the start line, in time for the warmup stretches and the starting "horn." It wasn't until we were approaching the Manulife HQ on King Street in Waterloo and I was looking for the regional police officer in the street to wave us into the usual Manulife rest stop, that I realized something was different.

No rest stop at Manulife. Wow. In more than 17 years of doing this event, we have always stopped at Manulife. Even when the route changed years ago and dropped the St. Mary's Hospital stop, we still managed to accommodate a Manulife stop. What happened?

The fog lifted once we got back to Waterloo Park. Way fewer cyclists. Registration was down: 600 riders from the 1,000 registered last year. The weather was likely a factor (two peeps on my team were shivering uncontrollably). But the Manulife presence was dramatically reduced: there were fewer Manulife staff corporate challenge teams, and the Manulife reps I have become used to seeing over nearly two decades weren't obvious (maybe I missed some).

So the bulk of corporate sponsorship for the event fell to this group: Erb Transport, M&M Meats, Ziggy's Cycle, Boston Pizza, Pattison Outdoor Advertising and a lineup of media partners (CTV, Waterloo Region Record, KIX 106, CHYM, and 570 News).

As of today, only $85,000 was raised by the Bike and Hike for Heart, compared to $200,000 last year. Of course, add the LPGA proceeds and the total for the two events is $335,000. Clearly, if the national LPGA event keeps raising big bucks for the hospital, that's positive. What is sad is that it appears that the fundraising responsibility is shifting from the grassroots to a group who can afford to attend an LPGA. I regret the declining role the local community has in raising funds through a supportive, outdoor, healthy lifestyle event that is open to anyone who can raise a few bucks to come out.

From where I sit, the St. Mary's Bike and Hike people should rethink the 2013 event. Manulife has already switched the 2013 LPGA to July, so a return to an early June date for the Bike and Hike would still provide a month of separation. Manulife employees who want to field a team will still have a month before they are out on the golf course.

I always saw the Bike and Hike as an integral part of the unofficial Bike Month activities of June (which include the Commuter Challenge and the Cambridge Tour de Grand). The Bike and Hike really kicks off the fundraising season. A September event is in a charitable crowded house (Terry Fox Runs, CIBC Run for the Cure, Cycle for Sustainability, Wiggle-Waggle WalkaThon, etc).

And my advice to those who thought about supporting the St. Mary's Hospital Regional Cardiac Care Centre but didn't, you can still sponsor a walker or rider, post-event, at this webpage.

 

 

 

Lance Armstrong: just another dope?

Wow. What a kick in the gut. Even if you thought it might be true, you really hoped it wasn't.

Lance Armstrong is basically pleading "no contest" to the charges that he doped his way to seven Tour de France victories. Here's a link to the ABC story. Sounds like he'll be stripped of his titles and banned from pro cycling in any form.

So, he's a cheater? What does everyone who looked to him as an example now think? The young would-be cycling pros. The North Americans who tuned in to the Tour de France every year because a non-European was challenging the status quo. The cancer victims, and the hospitals, charities and agencies that counted on his star-power to raise money for their good work.

I've got a Ride With Lance hat that I got for a donation to one of his rides here in Waterloo Region. Am I planning to "retire" it?

No. It was a part of a dream. I enjoyed every minute of that dream. And I'm not going to erase it, just because I woke up and was surrounded by reality.

 

 

Bike Summit in Oshawa next Wednesday

GTAers may be interested in seeing how the outlier communities are responding to a cycle friendly future, by attending next Wednesday's (May 30) Durham Bike Summit.

Co-sponsored by the Share the Road Cycling Coalition (my, those are busy folks), the 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. summit at the Oshawa Jubilee Paviliion sort of kicks off with a Ride With Mayors, Durham Waterfront Community Ride on Sunday, May 27, on the Ontario Waterfront Trail, departing from Lakeview Park at 10 a.m. The ride is in partnership with the Durham United Way, to support the charity and the waterfront trail. The weather should be right. Go for it.

Why not wear a bike jersey to work?

Here's a way to put the casual back into "dress-down Fridays."

MS Bike Tours is promoting this Friday, May 25, as the first national "Wear Your Jersey to Work" day.

Ideally, of course, that jersey would be one of the ones you earned for raising $1,000 or more for a previous MS Bike Tour. The point would be to show your commitment to a good cause, highlight that May is MS Awareness Month and get your colleagues talking about MS Bike Tours. (OK, they're going to talk about you and your jersey, but you should be able to parlay that into a couple of pledges.)

If you and your co-workers do wear an MS Bike Tours jersey to work, the bike tour people would like to know about it. Take a photo and email it to biketour@mssociety.ca

This week's inspirational cycling story

If you'd like to start your week with an inspirational cycling story, check out this one on the BBC website about Daryl Gittins, a man with brain tumours who has turned to cycling to make himself healthier, and spread the word about brain health.

Manulife Bike and Hike switches to September from June

If you happen to click on the Manulife Bike and Hike for Heart website, and note that the date for this annual fundraiser is the same as the Tour de Grand (Sunday, June 10), you need not worry about having to choose.

The Bike and Hike is moving to September this year.

Crowding the calendar for the hundreds of Manulife employees who make the Bike and Hike the fun event it is, is the Manulife Financial LPGA Classic (June 20-24), which is also going to draw on the Manulife volunteer pool.

As a result, the St. Mary's Hospital Foundation folks have decided to switch the Bike and Hike to fall. The tentative date is Sunday, Sept. 23. No other cycling events that I can see. It'll be a beautiful fall day (you read it here first) and since the Bike and Hike for Heart comes at the end of the cycling season, you'll have none of the usual too-early-in-the-season reasons not to take part!

Time to register for the Tour de Grand

Registration is now open for Cambridge's biggest, longest and most inclusive bicycle event, the Cambridge Tour de Grand.

Mark it down on your calendar: Sunday, June 10. If you can ride a bike 10 kilometres, you can participate. If you can ride 160 km, you can participate. There are eight routes of varying length and terrain, so you can choose your challenge. Participants get a T-shirt, food and drink along the way and refreshments at the end of the ride. Helmets are mandatory for the ride.

There is a cost: $18 per person if you register before June 4 (which may sound a long way from now, but has a habit of sneaking up on you) and $40 per family of four (two adults and two kids). And, if you are a cycling jersey fan, you can order the 2012 jersey for $65 by April 6. Proceeds of the event go to Helmets for Kids, a program that outfits Cambridge kids with bicycle helmets.

How many come out? That the T-shirts go to the first 1,200 participants should be an indication. I've always had a good time on this ride. Good people, lots of volunteers to make things work, a real treat of an event.

Fundraiser to benefit family of Jenna Morrison

The loss of young mother, yoga instructor and cyclist Jenna Morrison in Toronto earlier this month to a right-turning truck is unbelievably sad.

Her death has been the focus for public grieving (a ghost ride last Monday and a packed church for her funeral that night) and public action (MP Olivia Chow's private member's bill calling for truck side guards).

Morrison had a Waterloo Region connection through fellow yoga instructors at Blue Skies Yoga & Eco Store in Kitchener, who have decided to host a fundraising open house next Sunday, Nov. 27, to support Morrison's partner Florian Schuck and their five-year-old son, Lukas.

The open house will be held from noon to 4 p.m. at 55 Victoria St. N., Suite G. There will be free treatments in shiatsu, acupuncture, massage therapy, classes in Qi Gong and restorative yoga, a silent auction and a bake sale. All donations and proceeds will go to Morrison's partner and their son.

There are more details at the Waterloo Cycling Club website.