Brian Dougherty’s mother passed away in 2000 due to cancer. Her story is, alas, far from rare: statistically speaking, one in two British Columbians will face this unforgiving disease over the course of their lives. Driven by a sense of duty to honour his mom and support others who are fighting (or eventually will fight) against cancer, Dougherty committed to this year’s Tour de Cure cycling fundraiser with the PCL Pedallers.
On Aug. 26 and 27, more than 1,500 riders made their way from Cloverdale to Hope, covering 200 kilometres for the official Tour de Cure. Dougherty, though, went above and beyond the call: he set off from Whistler on Aug. 25 and embarked on a nearly 600-km journey to Merritt. His goals were tied to his fundraising benchmarks, and when generous donors combined to break the $15,000 mark, he knew what he was in for.
As of this writing, Dougherty has raised more than $17,000 for the BC Cancer Foundation.
“This year was a little bit special,” he explained. “I wanted to use this year to push the envelope a bit further.
“Battling cancer is no easy journey, and sometimes it’s a very deadly journey. For us to push our bodies past [certain] envelopes on a physical level when we’re healthy, you know, that’s the least we can do to try and incentivize donations and help keep these things from happening in the future for other people.”
‘Absolutely special’
By no means a professional athlete, Dougherty is chief operating officer for the landscaping firm Horizon Contracting Group. He first became involved with the Tour de Cure more than a decade ago, when it was branded as the Ride to Conquer. At that time, Dougherty’s idea of training for a long event was to get on his bike once or twice a week, but he applied himself more seriously two-and-a-half years ago when he qualified for the UCI GranFondo World Championships via the RBC GranFondo Whistler.
Dougherty is less than a month away from his 47th birthday, but age has not prevented him from levelling up his skills in time for his greatest cycling challenge.
Prior to this year, the Surrey resident’s longest ride was approximately 166 km, and he’d never done that type of distance on consecutive days. This time, he opened with 206 km from Whistler to Cloverdale, following up with a 166-km trek to the Chilliwack Fairgrounds on his second day and a personal-best 220 km on Day 3 to cross the finish line in Merritt.
He won’t soon forget the opening leg of his odyssey down the Sea to Sky corridor.
“There were cyclists coming up the other way as I’m going down and everyone’s waving to each other,” Dougherty recalled. “The community of sport up in Whistler is fantastic. We don’t have anything else like that in the world, and I think some of us who grew up on the West Coast kind of take it for granted.
“Sometimes, it takes us to leave for a bit and come back to realize what we do have here is absolutely special.”
Alas, the Sea to Sky’s natural beauty was somewhat marred on Friday by smoke. Wildfire-belched haze inundated a considerable area from Horseshoe Bay to Coquitlam, causing Dougherty to ride with an N95 mask for the first time. It elicited a few strange looks from passers-by on Highway 99, but kept his lungs mostly clear of pollutants.
Other challenges came in the form of flat tires, the occasional reckless driver and, of course, fatigue, but it was nothing Dougherty couldn’t overcome with a little help from his support system. His wife Amanda tagged along in a car, bringing food, water and mechanical equipment along with daughters Vienna and Mackinley. Meanwhile, the rest of the PCL team joined in over the weekend.
“[It was nice] to be part of the PCL Pedallers for the actual Tour de Cure with that sense of community and camaraderie,” said Dougherty. “This was a big mental lift and it would have been way harder if I didn’t have them to ride with during the event.”
‘The least we can do’
With temperatures in the mid-30-degree range as they clawed their way up the Coquihalla on Sunday, Dougherty and a few dozen of his peers made it past what they later learned was a key cut-off point. About five minutes after they went through, declining air quality convinced race organizers to truncate the event for most riders, who only made it 70 km into the second day.
Fortunately, the skies then cleared enough for Dougherty to make his final push beyond Hope. With family in tow, he rolled into Merritt at about 7:20 p.m. on Sunday night.
A visit to his mother’s resting place in Brookswood was perhaps the 46-year-old’s greatest source of strength over the course of his lengthy undertaking.
“I looked at my mom’s tombstone [and thought about] how many other people in that cemetery didn’t have a fulfilled life, or passed on before they were able to have kids, or passed on before they were able to see their kids get married,” he reflected. “My mom missed out on seeing her grandkids, and she was a huge family person.
“I get it, we will all die, but having your life cut short and not having some of these major milestones in life is just not cool. If I can use my biking to incentivize donations for a great cause, then fantastic. That’s the least we can do.”
Those wishing to support Dougherty and the BC Cancer Foundation can still contribute here.
