A former Olds resident undertaking a cycling fundraiser from Kelowna to Olds has reached his destination.
Curtis Ross arrived in Olds on Tuesday, Aug. 20, just five days after leaving Kelowna.
A celebration of Ross's achievement was held Wednesday night at Tracks Pub, where he gathered with friends and family. He rode to that event on his bike.
Along the way, he stayed at homes of family members and friends.
The purpose of the Cycle2Change2019 bike-riding trip was to raise money for mental health via Alberta Health Services in Olds as well as the Canadian Mental Health Association in Kelowna.
He also sought to increase awareness about the effect low oil prices have had on workers in the industry. Although he now lives in Kelowna, Ross, 37, works in the oilpatch between Olds and Sundre.
Ross set up a GoFundMe page for the trip. As of Aug. 20, he had crushed his $10,000 goal, having raised $15,065 in just three months, receiving support from 109 people.
Overall, Ross says the ride was "good," although he had to overcome some issues.
"It was a personal challenge. I wasn't sure at certain times that I could push though. I had a lot of knee pain into Day 2 and into Day 3," he said.
"I guess there were moments through the trip that made me question whether or not I could go on, just on the physical side. Mentally, I was ready for it, but on the physical side I suppose, there were a few obstacles that kept getting in the way."
Besides the knee pain, the other big obstacles for Ross were the mountains and hills along the way.
Weather was also a challenge from time to time.
"I got rained on pretty hard on Day 2 in between Sicamous and Revelstoke. And then I got rained on pretty good again between Revelstoke and Canyon Hot Springs," Ross said. "But you know what? I just kind of pushed through and got it done."
Rogers Pass was the biggest obstacle of all.
"Day 3, leaving Canyon Hot Springs, I only got maybe five or six kilometres up Rogers Pass and my knee pretty much was starting to give out," Ross said.
"I had taken a pretty heavy inflammatory that morning; a strong prescription from my doctor, and within an hour-and-a-half, I took a second one.
"I thought my trip was going to be over. To be quite honest, I thought the trip was going to be done.
"I didn't think I was going to be able to make the summit. I had to get off my bike and pretty much just sit on the side of the road and kind of gather some thoughts, and really that's kind of how that day went for the first little bit.
"I pushed through and popped back on and kept going to the summit. And I made it and just kept going, and I pushed to Golden," he said.
Ross said fortunately, traffic was pretty good and left him alone.
"I didn't have one instance on the highway the entire 700 (kilometres) that even had me concerned or that there were any near misses with traffic. Everything really went well," he said.
He was buoyed up by the support he received from family and friends via social media and in person.
"There wasn't a day that went by, from the day that I left, that I didn't have family and friends randomly pop up every single day along the way and bring me food or bring me water — and in some cases, beer," Ross said.
"A lot of my family brought a cooler full of beer, so often we'd sit on the highway and even have a few beer. It was a lot of fun," he added.
"Day 2, when I was just about probably two miles into Revelstoke, my cousin Willie showed up on his Harley. He surprised me out of nowhere."
Each morning Ross would pay the price for the kilometres he had cycled the day before.
"It was the same thing every morning. I would wake up; just the pain in my knee, lower back and shoulders. It took a while to kind of — you know, get a lot of that behind me and just kind of push forward, to go on," he said.
However, just before he reached Banff, Ross met a young medical student who was cycling from Vancouver to Nova Scotia to raise awareness about doctors with autism.
"She was diagnosed with autism at 37. She's a medical student. And so she hadn't raised any money for her campaign. She was just kind of hoping to get as many followers (as possible) on Facebook," he said.
When he thought about how much farther she had to go than he did, that spurred him to cycle extra far; on to Canmore, instead of stopping in Banff as he had originally planned, for a total of 160 kilometres that day.
Generally, he travelled between 77 and 85 kilometres a day, riding between five and six and a half hours a day (except for the ride into Canmore, which lasted about eight hours).
Ross burned up to 5,500 calories a day, and found himself having to eat about every 90 minutes.
That didn't stop when he got to Olds either.
"You can't give me enough food," he said. "I just ... ate two full bacon and tomato sandwiches and probably an entire bag of nachos with dips and stuff. My body's just craving calories. My body's never done anything like this, you know? It's really weird, the state that it can go into."
Ross's bike had a flat tire within the first five miles of his trip on Day 1, but after that, there were no mechanical issues.
However, "it’s definitely in need of a tune-up," he wrote in an email. "It’s making bad sounds on the gears after 700 kilometres."
