Background
This inaugural Bike-a-thon is the brainchild of Trevor Barry of the Lightning Crickets (legacy 24-hour Relay Team).
Maintaining Momentum: the Legacy of Lightning Crickets
Back in 2012, Trevor Barry joined the Lightning Crickets 24-hour Relay Team supporting Easter Seals’ Camp Shawnigan for kids with special needs.
As one of the many efforts that made this team a top-fundraiser across BC in those years, the “Crickets” ran their own volunteer group at the Great Canadian Beer Festival - a popular outdoor end-of-summer event in Victoria each September. The “Crickets Coat Check” offered festival-goers a place to securely store their bag or jacket while they attended the festival. Some years the sun would pop out from the clouds, and the Easter Seals would receive net-proceeds in excess of $1000 from just one day of donations.
Trevor’s crew of crickets have been keeping this up ever since - but alas! GCBF beer fest has been cancelled this year!
So Trevor asked himself: how can I keep the spirit of this annual Easter Seals benefit effort alive this year, and in a way that fits into my busy summer with three kids?
💡Bike-a-thon!
Trevor and his two elementary kids started an annual tradition in 2023 of cycling from Victoria to Vancouver for a week in the summer, and back again. 70km each way + daily excursions.
Trevor says:
We are inviting you to join us - at least in spirit - on your own bikes, on your own journeys.
Or, if you wish to join us in-person on our Lochside Trail trips, just get in touch! (Or, for mainlanders: Steveston to UBC is another great trek).
This will be the first year my daughter plans to do the whole trip on her own bike under her own power - pledge us to support her effort! And for me, this is the first year I will be doing the trip without any battery power (because family with baby will drive our gear to UBC where we stay on campus – which is an empty cycling playground during mid-summer!)
(We hire a ferry barge to cross the Fraser River from Ladner to Steveston - allowing us to stick to regional trails and city bike lanes/routes)
