If age is a state of mind, then the rider representing Nanaimo and Ladysmith in this year’s Cops for Cancer Tour de Rock is both young in spirit, heart and health.
Bruce McKenzie, 70, a volunteer firefighter with North Oyster Fire Rescue, is one of the more senior riders to ever take on the challenging training and ride.
The Cops for Cancer Tour de Rock is a 1,200-kilometre, 14-day cycling tour that starts in Port Alice and finishes in Victoria to raise money for the Canadian Cancer Society, specifically to support children with cancer and their families and to fund research to battle pediatric cancer.
The training, which started in March, can be gruelling, as is the tour, as riders, some of whom begin with little or no cycling experience, overcome the physical challenges and sometimes extreme weather conditions as they rack up about 5,000km in training to prepare for the tour.
McKenzie, with North Oyster Fire Rescue for 10 years and until recently serving with the rank of captain, has been active all his life as an avid cyclist and a runner before he had knee replacements.
“I can’t take the pounding, so the way I get my aerobic exercise is one a bike,” McKenzie said. “Even as a kid I had a bike. When I was in university I couldn’t afford a car. I had a bike. In Victoria I rode my bike everywhere. I just really enjoy riding a bike and my wife and I, on our holidays we do bike tours around different places. We’ve been in Italy a couple of times and Myanmar … all within the last 10 years.”
McKenzie grew up in Nanaimo, but his career in the oil and gas industry took him and his family abroad for more than 30 years for work in the Yukon and Northwest Territories, Alaska – initially to work on the Exxon Valdez oil spill and ended up spending 10 years there working on pipeline projects, Abu Dhabi, Houston, and London.
“We got married and moved away for a year and we came back 30 years later,” McKenzie said. “My kids grew up overseas and they have a very different perspective on the world, which is kind of nice.”
McKenzie’s initial motivation to ride Tour de Rock was to help raise money to fund cancer research, and a cycling tour fundraiser for a cyclist and firefighter seemed like a good fit.
“I love biking and, initially … for me, the cancer piece was around firefighters,” he said. “I mean, it’s one of the leading causes for deaths in firefighters just because of the exposures to the products of combustion over a long period of time … but I would say that my thinking has evolved a little bit as I’ve become more and more involved in the Tour de Rock.”
McKenzie has learned some team members are cancer survivors or had children who died of cancer and he said it’s tough to hear their stories.
“I think of myself as being pretty tough and I can handle most things. We see some pretty horrific things when we go to fires and motor vehicle accidents and stuff like that, but I can’t imagine what it’s like to have a kid with cancer,” he said. “Like, how tough do the parents have to be, and those little kids?"
One part of the Tour de Rock experience McKenzie admits to being nervous about is the day the team will spend at a summer camp in Maple Ridge for children with cancer and one of the main Canadian Cancer Society programs the tour supports.
“I’m nervous about Camp Goodtimes because I don’t know what to expect,” McKenzie said.
Even for someone who rides consistently throughout the year – on a stationary bike when the weather prevents outdoor rides – the Tour de Rock training requires increasing hours in the saddle. Sunday training rides are already exceeding 80 kilometres. Team members also develop speed and strength on nights dedicated speed training and climbing hills.
“I actually like hills. I don’t know why. I quite enjoy them,” McKenzie said.
Some of his favourite climbs include Aho Road, a short, but steep and challenging ascent in North Oyster, and Observatory Hill Road in Saanich. McKenzie said he’s most looking forward to riding up the Mount Washington Parkway and the section of Highway 4 from Cathedral Grove to Port Alberni, known as the hump.
“A couple of folks that are running the tour they say it’ll change your life and I can see how it does that,” he said, noting that the Tour de Rock ride trainers, who are Tour de Rock alumni, keep coming back year after year to volunteer.
“I think one of the things I’m really interested about is what motivates people to keep coming back to volunteer for Cops for Cancer,” he said. “That’s the ‘aha’ thing I’m waiting to find out.”
To learn more about Cops for Cancer Tour de Rock, click here.
