Exhausted charity rider off to bed after 8,000 km trek

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This article was published 27/07/2009 (5897 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WINNIPEG – After finishing a gruelling 8,000-kilometre bike ride for charity this morning, Winnipeg cyclist Arvid Loewen knew exactly where he was heading next.

“I’m going to bed!” an elated but exhausted Loewen, 52, said with a laugh after hopping off his bike at about 7:30 a.m. in the parking lot of North Kildonan Mennonite Brethren Church.

“I was just on the bike for 24 hours straight, but I’m doing OK. I’m tired but I’m quite amazed how well I do feel. I feel pretty satisfied with what we’ve accomplished.”

On July 4, Loewen kicked off his Tour For Life, planning to ride 457 kilometres a day for 23 straight days to raise money for a Kenyan orphanage facing a drought and a looming food shortage.

The goal was to raise $100 per child for each of the more than 2,000 orphans at the Mully Children’s Family, a sprawling, self-sustaining orphanage 108 kilometres southeast of Nairobi.

“We’ve raised about $155,000 so far from this event,” the marathon cyclist said of the pledges he has collected from a host of donors. “My last 24 hours was worth about $50,000.

“Their crops are drying up (at the orphanage). This money is absolutely vital to them right now.”

Loewen said he was forced to battle the elements and a painful elbow infection during the ride, which saw him rise at 4 a.m. each day and collapse back in bed at about 11:30 p.m.

Inspired by Lance Armstrong and the Tour de France, he rode a continuous loop on Henderson Highway between Hoddinott and Lockport.

“It’s a 29-kilometre loop and that’s what I did all day long,” he said, trying to catch his breath. “After 23 days, it becomes a mental thing. When you’re in the middle of this, you can’t see light at the end of the tunnel.”

On Day 6 of his odyssey, he noted, the elbow inflammation forced him to suspend his Tour For Life for three days.

“It was to the point where Popeye the Sailor Man would have been proud to have had an elbow like that,” he chuckled. “I rode with it for two days and then went to the Pan Am Clinic. I had to take three days off. I was on antibiotics and we got the swelling down.”

Loewen said his main focus was to survive until the final day, during which he rode 24 hours straight from 7:30 a.m. Sunday until 7:30 a.m. Monday. Donors had pledged $69 per kilometre for every kilometre he rode in the last 24 hours.

“I was off the bike for only three minutes in that 24 hours to put on an extra sweater,” he said. “In total, I’ve ridden over 8,000 kilometres in the last 23 days, including the three days when I couldn’t ride.

“I couldn’t ride 457 kilometres every day because of the elbow infection and we had some pretty bad weather with thunderstorms and windy conditions.”

Loewen said this latest trek was part of his project, SpokeImpact, which he started in 2005 and so far has raised about $1 million for charity. “Cycling is just a platform,” he explained.