Push for the Cure

Four Canadians undertake the biggest challenge of their lives when they skate across Canada to raise money for Breast Cancer research.

 

The idea to skate across Canada came to the three best friends one evening in the fall of 2005. Aaron Jackson, 25 Carlos Koppen, 26 and Rob Lewis, 26 were sitting around discussing what happenings they should execute for their newly launched longboard skate website. With all of the hype around events like the X Games or Slam City Jam, they felt not many people knew about longboard skateboarding, something they were all passionate about. Wanting to do something spectacular and more than just another contest or group skate to get the word out, one of the guys jokingly said they should skate across Canada. At the time they all laughed at the notion, but the idea stuck.

 

 

Within a few weeks the three were planning the journey of a lifetime, a skate from Nova Scotia to Vancouver. “We were all best friends and have lived together for years, so I knew it was something that if we put our heads together, we could make happen,” said Rob Lewis from a hotel room in British Columbia on September 16. With three weeks left to go in the mission Lewis is in awe of everything they’ve been through and how overwhelming it is now that the end is in sight.

 

When the three first thought up the skate mission they were looking for a cause. Breast cancer seemed like a smart one to focus on for many reasons. First and foremost Lewis had recently had a friend’s mother die from the disease. And second, when they looked into the statistics they found out one in every nine women they knew would be afflicted with breast cancer in their lives. With a cause to focus on, the planning for the big skate took seven months. Then a few weeks before they were about to leave they became acquainted over the phone with another longboarder who lived in Toronto named Benjamin Jordan. He was a filmer and web person who asked if he could join the trio. After a two-hour interview they all decide he would be a good fit and the team was complete. “It was a big leap of faith for him because we have all been friends for years, but he had a lot of things to bring to the table and so we met him in person two days before we left and that was it.” 

 

The group set off in early May from Halifax, Nova Scotia. Skating an average of 30 miles a day on short days and 60 miles on long days (this translates to between 8-12 hours a day), it was not long before the reality of how massive this undertaking was set in. Then about three weeks into the trip they got the initial push they needed to show them they could pull this trip off. They arrived in a town called Vanleek Hill in Ottawa and someone in the town had caught wind of their journey and asked them to skate a few miles out of their way and stop by. “We didn’t think anything of it at the time because we just thought it was cool that they emailed us.”

 

When the team got about six miles away from the town they were greeted by a huge welcome committee of people in pink and the rest of the way to town there were more and more signs that there arrival was going to be a big deal in town. Once they hit the city limits the whole entire town was out on the streets wearing pink, there were streamers in the trees and pink balloons everywhere. “It was the most amazing thing because it was obvious that this whole town was supporting our mission.” That day Push for the Cure not only raised $10,000, but this welcoming helped them see the power of their mission and gave them a lot of stoke early on.

 

When Lat34 spoke with them it was remembering this day back in the beginning of the trip that was helping push them through one of the most difficult legs of the journey. They were sitting in eastern British Columbia in a hotel, waiting out a storm. In front of them Rogers Pass, one of the most difficult and steep sections of the whole trip loomed. This was the Rockies and being that it is mid-September, snow is in the forecast and the clouds were not looking good. “We’ll get over this even if we have to sit on our skateboards with our hands and feet down so we don’t slide off the road,” said Lewis.

 

Another downer on the trip was that two weeks earlier Aaron Jackson had a bad accident while traveling downhill on a road at about 45 miles an hour. The worst part of it was that he wasn’t wearing a shirt due to the heat. The accident landed Aaron in the hospital and the doctor advised him to go home because his injuries were so severe. “We have come to far so there was no way he was doing that,” said Lewis. So for the past few weeks Jackson has been co-piloting in the RV (his accident was so bad he can’t drive) watching two of the four of them skate. The usual program was that three would skate while one would drive and following, keeping the skaters protected from semis and other vehicles. “ We have a very elaborate system of communicating through honking so that if we do certain honks it means get off the road or watch your back.”

 

To pull this trip off the group had sponsors help fund the RV and pay for the gas and supply 18 skateboards. The longboards are slightly modified and a little closer to the ground to help reduce wear on the skater’s legs. In order to complete this many miles they have all had to get proficient in riding switch, so they can alternate back and forth between pushing with their right and left leg. “It was hard at first, but then you get used to it,” explained Lewis. He said regardless though, they all have one leg thatis noticeably larger now after pushing for 7000km. “When we tell people what we are doing they say, ‘no way,’ then we show them our legs and they believe it.”

 

For the most part the trip has been an incredible experience for the four, however on September 7, they hit a huge bump in the road when Aaron Jackson had his accident. “There’s no way he would have let us end this trip, even though things were looking bad,” said Lewis. “The hardest part now is that he’s not able to skate with us and it’s killing him.” It still remains to be seen whether Jackson will skate over the end line with his three friends, but he’s hoping so. “The thing we have all been most surprised about with the trip is the incredibly generosity of people. We had no idea how people would react to this call out of giving us a dollar for breast cancer and people have gone far beyond just doing that.”