Burnaby Staff Sgt. Wayne Baier said he wasn't about to let riding in the Cops for Cancer Tour de Coast go unchecked on his bucket list.
"I've been with the force for a while now and I've been looking for an opportunity to do it and long story short, work-wise and family-wise, I was finding myself being able to make it work," Baier told the NOW.
The Cops for Cancer Tour de Coast, which is an annual bike ride that raises money for research into pediatric cancer and support programs for children and their families, rolls through Burnaby on Wednesday, Sept. 17. From that day until Sept. 25, officers from police departments and emergency personnel across the Lower Mainland will travel from Maple Ridge to up the Sea-to-Sky corridor over to the Sunshine Coast and back to the North Shore. The tour takes nine days and amounts to about 900 kilometres of riding, which can be daunting but Baier said he's taking it all in stride.
"I'm 52 years old so pedalling 100 kilometres each day is no easy feat," he said.
To help get the riders into shape for the tour, practice rides are arranged each week. Baier took advantage of these rides, attending all except one of them. On top of the training rides, he also spent most of his time off riding around the Fraser Valley.
"I didn't take any vacation time this year to go anywhere, I actually took vacation time to ... pedal," he said. "Pedalling, pedalling, pedalling."
Much like the actual ride itself, the training rides stop at different community locations and hubs to do some outreach. The schedule can be demanding, even on the training rides, and it definitely takes some getting used to, Baier said.
"To be candid I did struggle with some of the training," he said.
But when the NOW spoke with him last week, Baier, who was getting organized for the ride, was confident he was almost ready.
"I wouldn't say I'm not at 100 per cent but the hills don't scare me as much as they did when we pedalled up SFU - that was quite an eye opener," he said.
Each rider that participates in the Tour de Coast has to raise $6,000 for the Canadian Cancer Society and as of Monday, Baier had just about raised $6,500 with donations still coming in. Meanwhile, Larry Wong, an auxiliary officer with the Burnaby RCMP, is among the top five fundraisers for the Tour de Coast. As of Monday, Wong had almost reached the $8,500 mark.
Baier credits their success to the support of Burnaby RCMP members who generously donated to the campaign, bought raffle tickets and attended the department's annual charity hockey tournament.
"Because I've been around a while, I just reached out to people and tapped them on the shoulder - contacts, businesses, etc. - and just asked them for money," he said.
Baier said that despite his initial worries about raising $6,000, he was surprised at how easy it was to collect that minimum amount.
"Turns out it wasn't that bad," he added.
Anyone interested in donating to either Baier or Wong's campaigns for the Tour de Coast can still do so by visiting http://tinyurl.com/TourdeCO.
