Tag: travel

Coquitlam climbs set the stage for Tour de France glory

This story first appeared in the Tri-City News on June 19, 2018

Alex Stieda owes everything he achieved in bike racing to Coquitlam. Or rather, the city’s hills.

So it’s only appropriate on Thursday he’ll be inducted into the Coquitlam Sports Hall of Fame at the Poirier Sport and Leisure Centre, located about midway between two of the climbs he regularly ascended on his 10-speed he’d acquired from a high school buddy to improve his fitness in advance of the Juvenile hockey season.

It was an unlikely beginning to a career that would make him the first North American cyclist to wear the Yellow Jersey as the leader of the Tour de France as well as compete for Canada at international events like the 1982 Commonwealth Games, 1983 Summer Universiade and the 1984 Summer Olympics.

Stieda’s grinds up Blue Mountain Street and Mariner Way caught the attention of a neighbour two doors down from his parents’ home on Gatensbury, near Como Lake. Harold Bridge was a dedicated randonneur, an eclectic breed of cyclists that enjoy rides of 200 km or more in a day; his wife, Joan, happened to be the president of Cycling BC at the time.

Bridge took Stieda under his wing, showed him how to ride in a group and draft behind other riders to save energy. And when the long, languid rambles of the randonneurs didn’t seem challenging enough for his young protégé, he passed Stieda on to Larry Ruble, who led a group of faster cyclists out of his Maple Ridge bike shop for rides to Mission or Fort Langley, and back.

More often than not, it was Stieda who took the lead and did the most work of their small peloton of 10 or 12 more experienced cyclists.

So Ruble suggested Stieda head to the roads around the University of British Columbia, where veteran racers competed to be the fastest in time trial races against the clock every Thursday evening.

Of course, Stieda cycled there, making the long ride out along 41st Avenue to UBC after school, post his time on the five-mile time trial course, then ride all the way home, pounding his way back up Blue Mountain in the fading twilight.

“When you’re at the end of your rope after riding 100 km, you just do everything to get home,” Stieda recalled from Edmonton, where he’s an account executive for an IT company. “Living in Coquitlam made me stronger.”

Strong enough that he started winning races at the old China Creek velodrome in Vancouver, then eventually a victory in the Canadian track cycling championships that earned him a trip to the junior worlds in Buenos Aries, Argentina.

‘I wanted to do more’

“This is super cool,” Stieda said. “I was smitten. I wanted to do more.”

Stieda started honing his road racing skills with local teams like Gunners and Carleton. Eventually he hooked up with a crew sponsored by a local Rotorooter franchise; they’d train and race through the summer, then unclog drains in the winter.

In 1981, Stieda realized to take his cycling to the next level, he’d have to travel to the sport’s spiritual home in Belgium where hardened European neopros banged handlebars, cut deals and maybe got noticed by bigtime pro teams, in kermesse races that could be found almost every afternoon or evening in small towns or villages across the country.

Stieda’s dad secured a $500 grant that paid for a flight to Ottawa, where he dragged along a home-built Fibreglas case holding his steel Marinoni racing bike to a military base in Trenton, Ont., to catch a Royal Canadian Forces flight to Lahr, West Germany and then on to Frankfurt, Germany and Ghent, Belgium, by train.

Stieda, 20 at the time, had no idea what he was getting himself into.

“The guys at the base probably got a kick out of me,” he said.

Midnight arrival

Deposited at Ghent’s train station at midnight, Stieda bounced his bike box over the dark, cobbled streets to find Staf Boone, a sort of Godfather of the local cycling scene who managed a number of  apartments in the area that he let out to visiting foreign cyclists pursuing their dreams.

Stieda roomed with an Australian cyclist. Their “cold-water flat” had no hot water, a propane hotplate for a stove, and they went to the bathroom in a shack out back.

“It was definitely a hard life,” Stieda said. “But I was just living in the moment.” 

Out on the road, Stieda learned some hard lessons as well. Semi-professional bike racing in Northern Europe has its own culture, its own code of rules and ways of breaking them in the name of survival.

“I didn’t have an opportunity to get intimidated,” Stieda said. “If you weren’t tough mentally, it was over.”

Stieda’s trial by cobblestone got noticed by the newly-formed American team, 7-Eleven, that was built around famed Olympic speedskater Eric Heiden who raced bikes as part of his off-season training, and included another Canadian cyclist, Ron Hayman. 

The team invited Stieda to enter some races in North America in the fall when he returned from Europe, and in 1982 he was offered a contract.

No illusions

Stieda said he had no illusions of glory. He didn’t have the lean build of a Grand Tour rider who could rack up big kilometres and recover to do it again the next day for the three weeks of a race like the Tour de France or Giro d’Italia, nor did he have the explosive power to win sprints. He was a domestique, a worker who could sacrifice himself for the team’s leader, haul water bottles, be there if a wheel needed to be swapped out.

That was to be Stieda’s role when 7-Eleven, now a big league professional team on a mission to popularize bike racing in the New World, was invited to the 1986 Tour de France, after two of its members stunningly won stages at the Giro d’Italia the year before. 

But somehow, the early stages of the 21-day race around France played to Stieda’s strength of being able to ride away from opponents for 80 or 100 km, just like those rides out to Mission and back home up Mariner Way. Add in some time bonuses he earned along the way, and midway through the Tour’s second day, after an 85-km road stage in the morning  that would be followed by a team time trial he barely survived in the afternoon, Stieda climbed atop the podium, got kisses on his cheeks from the podium girls and pulled on cycling’s most famous prize.

“It was really more of a strategic play rather than being the strongest rider,” Stieda said. “I had to figure out how to use my energy in the right way.”

Learning lessons

But Stieda couldn’t bask in his glory, as there were more lessons to be learned the next day. That’s when a veteran Dutch cyclist from another team told him on the road it wasn’t enough to wear the Yellow Jersey, he had to honour it by actually finishing the Tour.

“That hit me like a ton of bricks,” Stieda said. “So I just followed him around every day.”

Stieda did finish the race, in 120th position. But what amounted to his lunch hour in Yellow set the table for an era of North American glory in cycling’s biggest race, including overall victory in the ’86 Tour by American Greg Lemond — his first of three Tour wins — and more Yellow Jerseys worn by fellow Canadian Steve Bauer in 1988.

“It was just an amazing time, we were breaking new ground,” Stieda said, adding the old 7-Eleven teammates still gather for a reunion every five years or so.

• Stieda will not be able to attend the induction ceremonies on June 21. But he is sending a replica of his Yellow Jersey that will be mounted in a display in the lobby of the Poirier Sports and Leisure Complex.



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Legendary Port Coquitlam cyclist remembered as a ‘tough old guy’

This story first appeared in the Tri-City News on Jan. 15, 2021

Dan McGuire was small in stature; but in British Columbia’s quirky community of long distance cyclists, the longtime Port Coquitlam resident was larger than life.

McGuire died Dec. 12 at the Lakeshore Care Centre in Coquitlam. He was 88.

His daughter, Tara, posted on social media that he died from COVID-19 — only three days after he was diagnosed.

Born in Saskatchewan, McGuire was one of the founding members of the BC Randonneurs, a group of cyclists dedicated to logging long days on two — and sometimes three — wheels. He was part of a contingent of riders that organized a series of long-distance events ranging from 200 to 1,000 km in 1979 that would qualify them to participate in the famed Paris-Brest-Paris brevet, a 1,200-km endurance event in France that is held every four years.

B.C. RANDONNEURS
Dan McGuire helped form the B.C. Randonneurs cycling club so he and like-minded cyclists could prepare to take on the 1,200 km Paris-Brest-Paris brevet that is held once every four years.. He went on to complete the event three times.

McGuire went on to ride it three times. He also travelled to the event on several more occasions to support other riders from the club.

Garry Pareja, a member of the old Vancouver Bicycle Club that spun off the collection of hard-core riders that became the BC Randonneurs, said the group prepared by riding to Mt. Baker and back, or completing ascents of Cypress Bowl, Mt. Seymour and Burnaby Mountain all in one day.

“This branch of the club became the ‘Hard Riders,’” Pareja wrote on the BC Randonneur’s historical timeline.

But it was McGuire’s determination to keep pedalling even after his mobility diminished because of Parkinson’s disease that really cemented his status among the sport’s giants as well as an inspiration to show others living with the degenerative affliction what’s possible.

McGuire, who discovered cycling when he was about 40, had ridden across Canada a few times.

But at the age of 80, and coping with various ailments like arthritic knees and hands, scoliosis in his spine, macular degeneration in his eyes and the onset of Parkinson’s, he decided he wanted to pedal his bike to the four corners of the country — a journey of about 10,000 km.

By then, wrote Tara in a blog post, the disease and medication had so diminished her father, when he’d occasionally fall asleep at the dinner table “he’d look very much like a skinny grieving question mark.”

There was no questioning his determination to realize his cycling dream, though.

“Dan could focus intensely on an idea and the tasks that lay ahead,” wrote Leo Boon, another of the sport’s pioneers in B.C., in a memoriam on the Randonneurs’ website.

“He was just so stubborn,” Tara said.

McGuire’s journey to Canada’s most westerly, northerly, southerly and easterly points took him two years, with a break in between to rest his ailing back.

When he resumed in the summer of 2014, he’d switched from a two-wheeled bicycle to a three-wheeled recumbent to ease some of the aches of his aging body and keep him from tipping over.

As well, Tara said, it allowed him to pull to the side of the road whenever he pleased to just bow his head for a bit of a snooze. He had no organized support team, no motorhome to which he could retire when he wearied.

Instead, Tara said, her father relied on the kindness of strangers to look out for him.

“Dad’s confidence in the positivity, general all-around goodness of the human race, was a gamble he was willing and pleased to take.”

That spirit was infectious.

Fellow randonneur Ralph Maundrell wrote in tribute, “Dan had the ability to install confidence in people,” adding McGuire inspired his own pursuits in long-distance cycling and even marathon running.

“We have lost a wonderful human being, a tough old guy, a great cyclist,” said Boon.

“He could be gruff, but he was also very generous,” said fellow cyclist Deirdre Arscott.

Tara said it’s been heartwarming to hear the impact her father had on so many cyclists.

“He really worked hard to get people cycling,” she said. “We were always kind of impressed with his accomplishments.”

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How this former Coquitlam resident found herself on an epic bike ride in Canada’s far north

This story first appeared in the Tri-City News on Feb. 22, 2024

Some cyclists find fitness. Others find their destination.

Mahshid Hadi found herself.

The young Iranian woman who lived in Coquitlam for a year after fleeing her homeland has documented her search for identity aboard a bike in a short film, Escape and Embrace, that premieres Saturday, Feb. 24, at the Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival (VIMFF24).

Hadi, 32, said cycling adventures were a forbidden pleasure when she was a girl growing up in the central Iranian city of Isfahan.

While Hadi was able to taste freedom on two wheels when she was very young, she said once she turned nine, everything changed. That’s when Iranian law and religious rules begin to treat girls as women and their lives become very restricted.

Hadi could be as free and animated as she liked within the confines of her own family’s home, but once she walked out the door every aspect of her life and interactions with other people were dictated. She had to sit and walk a certain way, wear certain clothes, talk to boys in only very defined circumstances.

And though there was no specific rule forbidding her from riding her bike, authorities made it clear it wasn’t an acceptable activity.

Hadi’s life, once so free and adventurous, suddenly became very confining.

“I wanted to be a free-spirited girl, I wanted to do everything I had the potential to do as a girl,” she said. “I couldn’t be who I wanted to be.”

The trauma within her built up.

So, at 19, Hadi got out, secreted away by friends and associates to Türkiye (formerly known as Turkey).

There, Hadi said, she had freedom but not comfort. She couldn’t work officially, so she cobbled together a living teaching English to other refugees.

With the money Hadi was able to save, she bought a bike to be able to visit students in other refugee camps.

“Bit by bit, I left all my traumas on the road,” she said.

When Hadi’s application to immigrate to Canada was accepted, her love for cycling came with her.

In her new home, Hadi rode everywhere, Partly because she didn’t have a car, partly as an expression of her newfound liberty.

“It was a dream come true,” she said. “I felt this is a road and nobody can stop me from riding it. I don’t have to explain my riding.”

Iranian-Canadian filmmaker Mahshid Hadi has been on a journey of self-discovery with her bike since she arrived in Canada after fleeing her homeland to a refugee camp in Türkiye when she was 19 years old. MAHSHID HADI/INSTAGRAM

Last fall, Hadi said she felt a pull to push her cycling journey of self-discovery to a higher level and to share her story. She knew it needed to be a difficult trip, where the obstacles were not societal rules and religious edicts but the weather and terrain.

“I needed to feel vulnerable,” Hadi said. “But I wanted it to be my choice.”

Hadi pedalled the Dempster Highway from Dawson City towards Inuvik, about as far north as you can go on rubber tires.

And while a storm prevented her from reaching the road’s terminus, Hadi said the journey gave her a sense of finality to her past.

“This was the end of the road from all those restrictions I felt in Iran,” she said. “It was just me and the land.”

Hadi said the four-day trip may be over, but her journey toward self-discovery aboard her bike continues, She said her LIV gravel bike is her buddy, her port in the storm of life’s twists, turns and uncertainties.

“Any difficult time I go through, I know I can get on my bike and just let everything go.”

Hadi’s film, which documents the meaning of her ride along the Dempster Highway, is part of Bike Night at VIMFF24 where it will be screened with six other cycling films at Centennial Theatre in North Vancouver.

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Port Coquitlam motorcycle champion reaches speeds of 120 km/h. He’s just 10 years old

This story first appeared in the Tri-City News.

Tommy Molnar is a champion motorcycle racer.

But he’s still six years away from getting his driver’s licence.

Molnar, a Grade 4 student at Central Elementary School in Port Coquitlam, recently qualified to compete in the FIM MiniGP, an international road racing series for kids 10-14 that culminates with the top competitors from 22 countries earning their way to the world championship in Spain in November.

Tommy’s destiny to pull on racing leathers and throw a leg over a 160cc Ohvale racing motorcycle was pretty much bred in the bone. 

His dad, Tom, raced in his native Hungary for 20 years and ascended to compete in the European championships. His uncle and grandfather were also racers.

Tommy’s grandmother bought him his first pocket motorbike even before he born. At three, he learned to ride it, tottering down a back alley while his father and grandfather ran alongside to catch him if he fell over.

“It was pure joy,” recalled Tom Molnar of that moment.

Not that he particularly wanted his young son to follow in his tracks.

“It comes with a lot of sacrifices,” Tom Molnar said.  “It comes with a lot of injury.”

In fact, any further thoughts of motorcycling took a back seat when the family immigrated to Canada during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Three years later, Tommy started dirt biking but quickly expressed his preference to ride around a road track.

His dad got him his first racing bike and he practised in the parking lot of a nearby school before entering his first race at the Greg Moore Raceway in Chilliwack.

Tommy finished third.

“It shocked and surprised me,” Tom Molnar said. “He just figured things out.”

To take measure of Tommy’s commitment, the family set goals for lap times; if he attained them, they’d carry on for another season.

SUBMITTED PHOTO Tommy Molnar, 10, with some of the trophies he’s won racing motorcycles.

Young Tommy was more than game.

“At the end of the day, he has the mindset of a racer,” said Tom Molnar of his son. “We go to a competition to race, not just ride a motorbike.”

Tommy said he loves the adrenaline rush of attaining speeds up to 120 km/h. But mostly, he said, he enjoys the collegial atmosphere of the track.

“Everybody is nice to each other,” he said. “If one person has a problem, everybody helps out.”

Graduating to the FIM MiniGP series means Tommy will be competing against racers who are up to four years older. They also have more experience and strength to lean the 130-pound bikes through the corners.

To get ready for the races that will take place at tracks in Ontario and Quebec from July through September, Tommy practises in the parking lot at a Richmond shopping mall with several other racers who’ve secured permission to use the area, as well as an overflow car park in South Surrey. Some track time at Mission Raceway is also a possibility, along with regional events at Cariboo Raceway Park in Quesnel and tracks in Alberta.

Physically, Tommy’s dad has designed a workout regimen to build his strength and stamina and he does Tae Kwon Do three times a week.

“It does take a lot of energy,” said Tom Molnar of motorcycle racing’s demands.

Mentally, Tommy said he just tries to focus on the task at hand. There’s no room in his thoughts for fear of crashing.

“If you think about it, it’s going to happen,” he said. “You just have to hold your breath and just do it.”

Tom Molnar’s not quite as dismissive of the sport’s dangers. In fact, he said the easiest way to soothe his qualms for his son’s safety is to get on his own bike and join him on the track.

“Somehow it feels less scary than standing stationary and waiting for something to happen.”

Tommy said he’s looking forward to the challenges of the upcoming season.

“Everything is brand new,” he said. “I feel very happy that I can do this.”

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