A HEART FELT RIDE
Cyclists prepare for 940-km trek for new specialty lab
A heart-felt ride. Tour du Lac riders celebrate
their return to St. Catharines in last year’s ride. Riders will once again
travel nearly 1,000 kilometres in the second annual event in July. Supplied
photo
Last year, the St. Catharines lawyer’s mom suffered a heart attack. Because Niagara is the only major region in Ontario without its own cardiac catheterization lab — a new heart investigative unit is under construction at the new Niagara Health System hospital being built in west St. Catharines — she ended up languishing in the emergency ward of Greater Niagara General Hospital in Niagara Falls for a week.
“It was kind of crazy,” he said. “If the lab had been open in St. Catharines she would have been there in 10 minutes. It was pretty stressful.”
In the wake of her heart attack, doctors discovered Toppari’s mom suffered some permanent damage to the heart muscle from oxygen being cut off. “It (damaged muscle) never comes back,” said Toppari. “She gets exhausted easily now.”
That experience has only made Toppari even more determined to raise money for the much-need heart lab, which will offer services such as life-saving cardiac catheterization for people suffering serious blockages of their heart arteries. For the second year in a row, he’s helping to organize the Rotary Tour Du Lac, a marathon bicycle tour all the way around Lake Ontario.
It’s all part of efforts for the Rotary Club of St. Catharines South and the May Court Club of St. Catharines to raise $750,000 toward the new heart centre. The partners, who in this year’s ride are joined by the Performance Group of automotive dealerships, have already raised upwards of $600,000 through last year’s ride and other events such as galas. At least 17 riders with varied backgrounds have already signed up for this year’s 940-kilometre ride, which will run over seven days from July 8 to 14, and start and end in St. Catharines.
Toppari also lost an uncle who lived with his family for years to a heart attack, at just 54 years old. “He was more like an older brother to me than an uncle,” he said.
Joining the ride again will be co-organizer Ian Forbes of St. Catharines, who was rushed to Hamilton several years for an emergency procedure after experiencing extreme chest pain and shortness of breath. Doctors found his left coronary artery was 95 per cent blocked, but fixed the problem with a catheterization procedure. Forbes has since become an avid cyclist, taking part in long-distance bike tours in France, Germany and the Mediterranean.
Toppari said at least a half dozen firefighters, whose job requires fitness, are also joining the trek for which riders have been doing training runs.
“These firefighters are very fast,” he said. “They’re hard to keep up with. This is a real incentive: it keeps me training.”
Hopefully for the riders, this year’s event will have more forgiving weather. Just as they departed on their tour last year, temperatures soared to record highs, hitting temperatures of 45 C as public health authorities issued severe heat warnings.
The organizers are hoping for a large turnout of people to take in short rides alongside the tour riders on the first day of the tour, and on the last day as they pull back into St. Catharines in the ‘bring it home’ ride.
There will be several jumping off or joining points to match rider skills or availability.
People can make pledges for the riders online through the St. Catharines General Hospital Foundation’s website, available through the Tour du Lac website at www.rotarytourdulac.ca/
For more information, e-mail Forbes at ibbbbs@gmail.com.
