Holly Lavin is convinced cancer can be beaten.
Ultimately, as one of 25 riders in the Cops For Cancer Tour de North fundraiser, she's as committed to that goal as she is to putting the bite on serious crime as an RCMP sergeant.
Already a veteran of two Tour de North bike rides, in 2009 and 2010, the 46-year-old plans to hit the highway in Dawson Creek on Sept. 13 for the start of the seven-day, 850-kilometre ride. The ride is expected to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for pediatric cancer research.
"I just want to be part of the cure," said Lavin, part of the Prince George North District serious crimes unit. "I'm healthy and able-bodied and it's not a whole lot to ask of somebody so you should do what you can to get involved, not just with this cause but any cause."
The first leg of the north-to-south tour runs from Dawson Creek to Fort St. John, followed by stops in Hudson's Hope and Chetwynd (Sept. 14), Powder King (Sept. 15), Mackenzie (Sept. 16), Prince George (Sept. 17), Quesnel (Sept. 18), ending at Williams Lake (Sept. 19). Along the way, the riders will be stopping to visit elementary schools and will meet up with Cops For Cancer junior team members to speak at public ceremonies in each city. The 186-kilometre jaunt from Mackenzie to Prince George is the longest leg of the tour. A dinner and silent auction is planned for that day at the Sandman Signature Hotel.
In 2009 and 2010, the ride went from Prince George to Prince Rupert and Lavin has never ridden the north-to-south route. She's been training at least 150 kilometres per week since May. Lavin is more of a runner than she is a cyclist and prepared for the 2010 ride by running the Ottawa Marathon.
Lavin missed the last two Cops For Cancer rides but has helped organize the ride as the Prince George North District RCMP liaison for her fellow officers. The ride is open to RCMP officers, B.C. Ambulance Service employees, media and members of the general public.
All riders are required to fundraise and as of Friday, Lavin had collected $2,361 of her goal of $3,000, most of that raised by operating the concession stand at the College Heights slo-pitch park. She'll soon be selling her own cookbook and also plans to raffle a mounted swagger stick, a weapon 1800s-era RCMP officers used to carry while patrolling on horseback. An RCMP member from Nova Scotia makes the polished sticks from recycled hardwood that used to be part of the floor of the RCMP drill hall at the depot in Regina, where Lavin became an officer nearly 21 years ago.
Collectively in 2012, the Tour de North group raised $260,000 and this year the team goal is $300,000. Dennis Schwab of IDL Projects Ltd., who raised more than $29,000 for the 2012 ride, is back for another year. He's already raised $22,500 toward his goal of $30,000.
Money from Tour de North and three similar RCMP rides in September -- Tour de Coast (Greater Vancouver), Tour de Rock (Vancouver Island) and Tour de Valley (Fraser Valley) -- will fund the Canadian Cancer Society's pediatric research and will send kids suffering cancer and their siblings to Camp Goodtimes at Loon Lake near Maple Ridge. Every year in Canada, an average 850 children under age 14 are diagnosed with cancer but due to advances in treatment close to 82 per cent of them will survive the disease.
The riders will be wearing armbands in honour of Greg Pichler, an RCMP officer and veteran of several Cops For Cancer rides, who died of a heart attack in January at age 52 while skiing at Powder King. Pichler was the road mechanic for the 2009 Tour de North and rode with Lavin in 2010.
"Greg was always an avid cyclist and avid skier and he was a fun-loving guy," said Lavin. "He died doing what he loved to do."
