Mountains For Melons
Last year I decided to ride my bike as a tribute to my mother, a breast cancer survivor. With no real plan other than to gain and suffer through as much elevation as possible with two other friends we managed to climb 5200m of elevation over the course of 9 or 10 hours. This year we’re going bigger, we’re aiming at 6000m+.
Most of our lives have been affected in one way or another by breast cancer, maybe a friend or relative has it, has beat it or even lost someone to it. Whatever the case breast cancer don’t fuck around! It, ain’t fun, it’s survival and it’s brutal. It’s really tough to watch someone you love go through the battle and you want nothing more than to take their pain from them or ease it somehow. Unfortunately we can’t take it from them but maybe we can share it a little through empathy. By going out in ‘memory of’ or ‘tribute to’ on October 24th’s Mountains for Melons you can let them know that you that you want to be part of their fight.
The rough details are:
- Start Time: 7am, Saturday, October 24th
- Meet Spot: Stanley Park Round About
- Route: East (Whytecliff) to West (Indian River) with every significant climb in-between with no highways.
Absolutely everyone is welcome BUT here is the disclaimer!
This is an unsupported, unofficial, non-organized event. i.e. if you decide to participate then you do so at your own risk. A helmet would be advisable plus lots of nutrition and fluids. We don’t have a lunch spot organised and last year we only ate what we brought but it’s your ride so run it how you like it!
Our goal is to leave Stanley Park shortly after 7am and straight out to Whytecliff along Marine Drive after which the climbing begins. a fair amount of climbs/roads may be new to you so if you get lost, no worries just head out to the next meet spot directly or feel free to go it alone. The map above has a link to the course route so have a read so you know where you’re going. The 3 main meet points will be:
- Top of Cypress (After the Power lines at the ski bunny intersection)
- Grouse Car Park under the Gondola
- Base/Entrance of LSCR
Here is the rough timing of things from last year:
- 7am Leave Stanley Park
- 10-10.30am Top of Cypress
- 12.00-12.30pm Top of Grouse
- 1.30-2.00pm Base of LSCR (demonstration forest)
- 4.30-5.00pm Top of Seymour
We’ll organise everyone’s phone numbers before we take off and do a group check in to let you know when we’re leaving for the next climb so you can chose to meet us at the next one or finish up what you’re on. ALSO, it’s getting darker earlier these days so if you’ve made it to the top of Seymour around 4.30/5pm you should be alright otherwise you may want to call it a day and pat yourself on the back for a day of epic suffering. Bring a light just in case.
Of course every epic battle should have an epic reward so we are thinking to overrun Don’t Argue Pizza on Main and 16th Ave with bikes and sweaty bib shorts.
The goal here ultimately is to ride for breast cancer. If you feel like donating or putting a link up to for others to donate to then follow or copy this: http://my.e2rm.com/PersonalPage.aspx?registrationID=3151376&langPref=en-CA
NOTE: There is no donation required to participate so don’t worry about that, all we want is your support, bring something pink on your bike or on your person and when using social media along the way it would be awesome if you could throw in a few tags like #ClimbingForBreastCancer #BreastCancerAwareness #MountainsForMelons2015
Any questions, email paulmof@gmail.com