Morinville high school students are cycling the Rockies this week in honour of a town resident who died in Las Vegas 22 years ago.
About 11 Morinville Community High School students set out from Kootenay National Park today as part of the 25th annual Roger Champagne Memorial Bike Trip.
The students have trained for weeks to do this four-day, 280-kilometre ride through the Rocky Mountains, which is meant to give kids a chance to have fun outdoors, says ride co-ordinator and MCHS teacher Greg Boutestein. They also each paid $210 to participate.
The ride is named after Roger Champagne, the town resident who helped organize the original ride and built and drove the support trailer for it in 1992 and 1993. Back then, the ride was an unnamed event that was part of the Phys Ed 30 course at Georges H. Primeau school.
But one month before the 1994 trip, a young drug addict accosted Champagne and his wife, Lorette, in a parking lot outside a Las Vegas casino and demanded money, Boutestein said. When Champagne stepped in to defend Lorette, the addict shot and killed him.
The ride was renamed in Champagne’s honour, and his family decided to donate a bike to one rider in his name – a tradition they’ve kept up ever since, Boutestein said. (They just gave cash last year since no one needed a bike, he added.)
Lorette said the donations are meant to help kids that don’t have good bikes for the trip.
“It’s more or less keeping the legacy of Roger going.”
The bike, usually supplied by Cranky’s Bike Shop in St. Albert, goes to the student who writes the best essay on what the ride means to them, Boutestein said.
This year’s winner was Grade 11 student Ellianne Karch, who said the new bike was a huge improvement over her brother’s old clunker.
“I think that it’s good that they were able to take something negative and turn it into something positive,” she said of the ride.
The ride is a gruelling affair that features a vertical climb of about a kilometre, reports Boutestein. Students have to be prepared for everything from scorching heat to snowstorms (sometimes in the same day) as well as “the big hill”: a 12-km stretch near the Colombia Icefield that rises 360 metres.
“That tends to be the toughest climb of the entire tour.”
The last day is the toughest, said Grade 11 Lauren Stromner, who is back for a third shot at the tour.
“You think (the finish) is just around the corner and you still have 50 more kilometres!”
The ride is a great chance for you to bond with new friends and to see the outdoors, Stromner said. You also get to go about 80 km/h on some of the downhill stretches.
The ride is a little bit different every year, said Boutestein, who has been on it 21 times. Riders have come within arm’s reach of mountain goats, seen black bears foraging in the grass, and cruised past wolves and bald eagles.
“It’s a completely different experience than driving that road in a car.”
And it gives participants a massive boost to their confidence, he continued.
“It’s kind of like a life lesson. If you can overcome these obstacles that are on this trip, you can overcome anything.”
Lorette said Champagne would likely be ecstatic to know that the ride was still going after 25 years.
“He’d probably say, ‘Hey I didn’t start that to get looked upon for that. I just wanted to go ahead and help the kids.’”
The ride runs from May 17 to 21.
