HALDIMAND—Scott Mallory has ticked one giant box off his bucket list, recently completing a country-spanning bike ride that started out east last summer and ended this summer with a marathon journey on his Kona Sutra bicycle from the highest peaks of British Columbia, through the plains of Saskatchewan, and back to his front door in a little under two months.
While Mallory may call Sutton, Quebec home these days, he has a long and deeply rooted history here in Haldimand, growing up in Dunnville, living around the county over the years, and completing a lifelong career at CGC in Hagersville in 2021.
Inspired by the “greatest Canadian who ever lived” – Terry Fox – and by environmental advocate icon David Suzuki, Mallory has been preparing for the ride for the better part of his life.
He explained, “About 23 years ago I went to see a man named Mr. David Suzuki. He was at the Princess Margaret Theatre in Toronto.… He presented what he called ‘The Nature Challenge’. You had to take a card, and on it you had to write three things in your life that you would change to better the environment.”
“The third thing I chose was to buy a bicycle and start cycle-commuting to work. At the time, I worked at CGC Hagersville and I lived in Caledonia,” he continued. “Over the years I lived in Cayuga, Dundas, and I also lived in Ancaster, and I cycle-commuted from all those places.”
Years’ worth of stamina built from daily commutes, combined with the inspiration to follow in Fox’s footsteps, left Mallory longing to complete his own cross-country trek – and he wanted it to mean something.
The ‘why’ came to him during the first nine-day leg of his trip completed last summer, which took him across Canada’s maritime provinces, ending in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Dubbed the ‘Ride for Tolerance’, Mallory explained his inspiration in an essay he wrote pre-trip.
“Alone with my thoughts on my ride last summer the idea for a just cause for my journey began to form. A very good friend of mine had shown me Mohawk Institute Residential School in Brantford, ON. And on my ride, I saw another former residential school in Quebec…. When we experience cultures that are different from our own it can feel strange, but it is this difference that makes us all unique. We should not see this as a threat to what we believe and understand but as a chance to share and learn from others who may offer a different perspective. The Dalai Lama stated, ‘I’m not asking you to convert to Buddhism, only to accept and be tolerant of other religions.’”
Mallory’s essay touches on other forms of intolerance he has witnessed in his daily life, from road rage to misunderstandings that turn violent. He hopes his ride and the challenge it represented might encourage others to consider a more tolerant approach to all of life’s challenges.
“They say ‘love your neighbour, love everyone’. Well that’s not possible, but you can be tolerant,” he added.
To prepare for the trip, Mallory disassembled his bike and had it shipped out to Vancouver Island last summer, flying out and re-assembling it. He then spent the next several months meticulously planning a cross-country route.
His trip started on June 11 in Soote, BC. Mallory rode an about 120-180km a day throughout his trip, which finally reached its conclusion on July 17, largely travelling along the Trans-Canada Highway, except where it was restricted, until he reached Ontario.
Most nights he camped, with pre-arranged ‘food drops’ set up and waiting for him on arrival, set up months before and packed with enough dehydrated food and snacks to get him to his next drop site. He says there were times where he treated himself to a motel room, and he ate plenty of fast food along the way as well.
“I probably ate over 100 granola bars.… You have to keep eating. No matter how much food you eat, you’re going to burn more than you eat,” said Mallory on ensuring he got the proper sustenance to sustain his daily rides across all kinds of terrain and through all types of weather.
While Mallory was physically up to the task, he said that mentally he had to pass some hurdles, especially in Ontario; unlike other areas in Canada where there is more space on paved shoulders, he found himself perilously close to passing trucks and other motorists in certain spots, and under severe weather conditions at times.
“I just focused one day at a time: ‘This is what I’m doing today. I’m going to do 150km or whatever it was. I’m going to make it to this town. I’m going to do my bike maintenance.… Cook myself a meal, set up camp, and get to bed early,’” said Mallory.
He is proud of himself for completing his “amazing adventure…. There were some challenges I wasn’t expecting. I certainly did not expect northern Ontario to be as hard as it was, but I also didn’t expect the Rocky Mountains to be as easy as they were. I’m not saying they were easy, they weren’t, I had to do some high mountain passes, but BC had more flat roads than I expected, and northern Ontario had way less flat roads than I expected.”
In hindsight he calls the trip surreal, adding, “When you’re in the moment, it’s a little more overwhelming. Anything in life, when you think back about it, you just remember the good parts of it. The bad parts just fade into the background.”
He concluded, summing up the message behind his ride: “Here in Canada, we’re so diverse in ethnicity, religion…. Let’s just be tolerant of one another. We always hear that Canadians are polite and kind – well let’s live up to that.”
