(Submitted photo/Bike for Breakfast)

By battlefordsNOW Staff

Goal surpassed

Bike for Breakfast raises $260,000 as trip begins

Jun 4, 2021 | 1:03 PM

What started out as a simple cycling trip across the province has become one of the biggest fundraising campaigns for the Lloydminster area in years.

Bike for Breakfast, a three-day trip from Lloydminster to Tuffnell Saskatchewan and back by a 10 person team hoping to raise money for local school breakfast programs, is set to begin this afternoon. The fundraising goal was initially set at $200,000, but prior to noon on June 4, it had surpassed $266,000. Organizer Shaun Newman said the results before the event has even taken place have been stunning.

“I don’t even have the words,” he said. “It’s just pretty crazy how quickly the community rallied behind what we’re doing.”

The cycling is set to begin around 3 p.m. in the border city, with the group reaching the Battlefords sometime between 10 p.m. – 12 a.m. Over the course of Saturday, the trip will continue on Highway 16 past Saskatoon and make its way through communities like Lanigan before reaching Tuffnell in the afternoon. Newman said the goal is for them to make it back through the Battlefords Sunday afternoon and home in Lloydminster before dark.

In addition to future donations, there’s direct support coming in from local business during the summer, from restaurants to steel distributers. Newman said they’ve also been getting money from people far away from the region.

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“Dr. Nekky Jamal had dentists donate as far away as Toronto,” he said. “Bobcats coach Nigel Dube has had players families donate, so you know that’s from outside Lloyd. There’s absolutely money coming from other places.”

Going into the trip, Newman said the group has been itching to get going, though they hope things cool down a bit. Environment Canada is predicting high’s in the upper 20’s on Friday, mid 20’s on Saturday and low 20’s on Sunday, with an outside chance of rain in some areas.

“When you bike for two days, the weather is unpredictable and there’s no way to prepare, go with the mentality that you’ll face, wind, rain, darkness,” Newman said. “This whole thing started as a bike trip, so I’m excited.”

The wind is one of the more significant impediments to making it back to the border city in a timely fashion. Meteorologist Terri Lang said the wind is forecast to be blowing towards the east for most of the next 72 hours.

“It will be favourable for them heading east, unfavourable heading back,” she said.

“The wind is as assured as the sun coming up every day,” Newman said. “We’re going to have wind, we just hope that it will be behind us [most of the way].”

To help with other important factors, namely fatigue and the heat, the group will begin switching cyclists out after the first 11 kilometres, allowing someone to carry sections of the trip as others rest. After nine hours, Newman said they will make a decision on whether it works to have two people on the road together at a time, prior to when they get near Lloydminster on Sunday.

“We just have to feel that out on how everyone is feeling and whether or not we’ve had any major issues [during the trip],” he said. “But I would assume, whether it’s on the way there or way back, that we will have multiple riders.”

And while the fundraising goal has been met and much more, Newman said they’re hoping to get every possible donation available to support local school breakfast programs in the Lloydminster Public, Lloydminster Catholic, Northwest, Buffalo Trail and Onion Lake School Divisions.

“We’re not keeping any of it, we’re pushing it all into where it needs to go.”

Updates on Bike for Breakfast can be found on the event’s gofundme page and Facebook page.

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cjnbnews@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @battlefordsNOW