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Thanks to everyone who supported me during this ride... thanks to your generous donations and contributions, we raised over $8000 for cancer and heart and stroke research and for the PC Children's Charity!
This photo was taken at my final destination point, Cape Spear, Newfoundland, on August 25th, 2007... it was a great feeling and I couldn't have done it without all of your help! Thank you everyone!!!
  
Dear friends,
Thank you for visiting this site, for supporting my bike tour, and especially for the difference you are making in the lives of those who will benefit from the three charities I am biking for; the Canadian Cancer Society, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, and the President’s Choice Children’s Charity.
MOTIVATION
You might be asking yourself what would possess a man to hop on his bike and keep going until he simply runs out of road, 3000 km from where he started? Well, I asked myself the same question and it’s a combination of things, really.
We all find ourselves in peaks and valleys at different times in our lives. When we’re atop the peaks, we feel like we can do anything… hmmm, probably would have been a good time to take on a challenge like this. Alas, it’s when we are in the valleys, when everything seems impossible, that we really need to dig deep, find that little bit of strength that’s tucked way inside us all, bring it to the surface and let it explode. It was in such a valley that I decided I needed to do this.
I found myself in a bit of a rut in life, and needed to shake things up. I had always wanted to travel the country by bike (OK, so it’s not the whole country, but there’s still time for that adventure), and I couldn’t think of a better excuse to take a whole month off work!
INSPIRATION
I have always considered myself a very lucky man to be surrounded by a large and incredibly strong network of family and friends. Indeed, the greatest people anyone could ask for and a constant source of support and inspiration. In the past few years, I have witnessed many of these people I care deeply about, go through some horribly painful experiences, things I couldn’t imagine I would ever be able to handle. The personal strength they displayed to keep going, to believe that things will get better, sometimes even just to smile, proves how strong the human spirit can be and I truly admire them all for teaching me what strength really means.
About three years ago, my aunt was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. She was only 52, very healthy, never smoked or was even exposed to any degree of second-hand smoke. The cancer started in her lungs and spread rapidly throughout her body. She battled it courageously; however, the cancer was so severe that within a few months of diagnosis she passed. The shock was felt throughout the family, but to her immediate family, my uncle and three cousins, the loss was unfathomable. The whole family rallied around them to lend their support of course, but it was the personal strength and inner courage that each of them had to find, and did find, to endure the pain that left an impression on me.
Around the same time, a recent girlfriend of mine had lost her mother to cancer as well. Although I only knew her after this had happened, and I couldn’t possibly understand how it actually felt to lose your mother and best friend all at once, I could see the hurt and devastation it caused her. It gave me a deep respect for how strong a person she is, to maintain the positive attitude she still has towards life and how strong she had to be then, to get through that difficult time.
More recently, a very close and dear friend of mine lost her husband, at the mere age of 33, to a congenital heart condition resulting in a sudden and tragic heart attack. Equally painful as losing someone to a battle with cancer, yet different in that the loss is so sudden and shocking, this required another kind of personal strength altogether. Her husband was an athletic and vibrant man with a vigorous lust for life. The picture of perfect health. To lose someone like that, in the blink of an eye, leaving your equally vibrant spouse to deal with the unanswerable questions of how and why this could happen, seems the cruelest fate anyone could imagine.
I have tried my best to be a good friend and offer clumsy words of comfort, but there’s absolutely nothing anyone can say that eases the pain of such loss. It is purely on her strength of character, her resolution and an unbelievable amount of courage, that she gets through each day and she is an absolute inspiration to me that when things are at their worst, people really can do what they thought they were incapable of.
The President's Choice Children's Charity is dedicated to helping children who are physically or developmentally challenged by providing direct financial assistance in the form of mobility equipment, environmental modifications and more. The charity is able to supply much needed resources and helps provide a renewed sense of independence, dignity and freedom for children with special needs.
As an employee of Loblaw Companies Ltd., and also having a younger cousin who has been challenged with Cerebral Palsy his whole life, this is another cause which is important to me, and to which I am firmly committed.
DEDICATION
All of the people mentioned above, those who have passed and those who remain, inspire me daily. They will surely be in my thoughts during this entire journey and their experiences are the reasons I have chosen these particular charities.
This ride is dedicated to everyone whose lives have been altered by these diseases and have dug deep, and found the strength to push on.
I will be embarking on this tour from my home in Mississauga, Ontario, on the morning of August 1, 2007 and will aim to reach St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, sometime before the end of the month.
Please , check back for updates before and during the trip, sign the guestbook and feel free to email me at zainr@rogers.com with any comments, words of advice, caution, encouragement or anything else you might want to say or share with me.
Finally, please find the links to all three charities’ respective websites at the top, left-hand side of this page. There you will find information about how your donations are being allocated and the choice to donate online through a secure connection or by downloading printable donation forms that can be sent in by regular mail.
Please donate generously to any or all of these great causes.
Sincerely and with great appreciation,
Zain Rahman
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