Cycling to End Poverty tour in Piccadilly

Craig Bakay | Aug 16, 2017

About 75 cyclists and their 20 support staff spent the night on the Frontenac Arena grounds last week as part of their Sea to Sea, Cycling to End Poverty tour. “Everybody’s having an awesome time, morale is high,” said tour director Ed Witvoet. Their goal is to cycle from Vancouver to Halifax in nine weeks, raising awareness and funds as they go. “We’re trying to end the cycle of poverty,” Witvoet said. Sea to Sea grants funds to nonprofits along the route, in riders hometowns and globally through World Renew and Partners Worldwide. Riders pay a $500 registration fee and are expected to raise $3,000 per week or $12,000 for the summer.

“We’ve already raised $1.5 million,” Witvoet said. “One guy has raised $72,000 alone.” They do about 100 kilometres a day with rest stops at 25, 50 and 75 kilometres. Two vans carry support workers, riders’ gear and food. “We we stop for dinner, everybody has a chore to do,” he said. Witvoet said he expects there will have been 135 cyclists taking part with 52 going the entire nine weeks. Riders can sign up for parts of the tour or the entire route. “We’ll gain a number of riders when we hit Ottawa,” he said. And speaking of Ottawa, that was the goal when they left Piccadilly last Saturday morning. The plan was to ride Westport Road to Westport and then on to Perth on County Road 10. “We chose this (Piccadilly) as our stopping point between Peterborough and Ottawa,” he said. “We’ve been trying to take as many back roads as we can, avoiding Hwy. 7.”

The route has even dipped down into the U.S. running from Grand Rapids, Minnesota along the south shore of Lake Superior to Sault Ste. Marie. They also took a jaunt along Manitoulin Island and rejoined the mainland at Tobermory. This is the fourth year for the annual trek which has also included routes from Seattle to Jersey City and Los Angeles to New York City “The communities we’ve visited have all been great,” he said. “We’ve had a lot of media and we’ve even had great weather.”