Replacement rides have arrived for two cyclists on a cross-country fundraising trip whose bicycles were stolen in downtown Winnipeg late last week.
The pair of New Brunswick men plan to resume their trip Tuesday, Valentin Duquenne, one of the riders, told Global News. He will be joined by his riding partner, Thomas Clark.
They picked up their new bicycles from a shop in St. Vital on Monday. Duquenne and Clark are riding across Canada to raise money for men’s mental health through the Men Don’t Ride Alone Campaign. They are trying to spread awareness and fundraise for Movember Canada.
The ride is set to end in Victoria, B.C., after beginning last month in North Sydney, N.S.
Their bikes, worth about $15,000 combined, were stolen Friday morning at approximately 8 a.m., the duo said.
“I was just walking towards the car and then all I could see was the back bike racks where they should have been,” Clark recounted. “I started to go quicker and run towards it and then I realized they’re actually gone. And so, me and (Duquenne) just started looking around.”
“We were just in shock for the first bit. We were like, ‘Did this actually just happen?’ The one thing we need the most to do this ride is now gone,” Clark said.
Duquenne said he thought Clark was joking until he saw the empty rack.
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“It was definitely shocking. Not fun at all, but the city of Winnipeg really came together for us,” he continued.
After realizing the bikes were likely “long gone,” Clark said they contacted the Winnipeg Police Service (WPS). Police asked the public for help finding the bikes in a social media post later that morning.
As of Monday afternoon, Winnipeg police said it had “no updates to provide at this time” on the ongoing investigation.
Last year, WPS reported responding to 1,350 instances of bicycle thefts. The service noted that if multiple bikes are reported stolen from one location, it counts as a single incident in police data.
Rodney Bolianaz is a former Winnipeg police officer who cycled from Winnipeg to Vancouver to raise money for a children’s charity. He said when he heard of the thefts and the cause the pair’s trip is supporting, he felt obliged to help.
“For these guys to come through Winnipeg and have that happen to them, we as Winnipeggers, we reach out,” he said. “We just decided we have to do something big for these guys to make sure that their time in Winnipeg was memorable.”
“I’m very sorry that their bikes got stolen and that this happened. I’m not sorry that this has brought it to the media to help their cause.”
Bolianaz and his family donated $5,000 to a fundraiser launched by the men to buy new bikes.
The owners of three Winnipeg Canadian Tire stores also came together and donated $8,900 to ensure the riders could meet the replacement bike fundraising goal.
“Our first thought was, ‘Wow, that’s awful’ and ‘What could we do to help?’” recalled Chris Coenen, owner of the Canadian Tire in the Garden City Shopping Centre.
He spoke with Global News alongside the other donors — Marc Gaudreau, who owns the location at Polo Park, and Brad Elliott, the owner of the store on Kenaston Boulevard.
“They started a job, or started a journey across the country, and we wanted to make sure they had a chance to continue,” Coenen said.
The trio will watch as Duquenne and Clark finish their cross-Canada trip, he added.
The cyclists said they hope to raise $250,000 in support of men’s mental health by the time they reach Canada’s west coast.
“It’d be really, really insane if when we hit Victoria, we were at that goal that we had set,” Clark said.
They expect to arrive in the Vancouver Island city on Aug. 15. Initially, they were planning on Aug. 10, but Duquenne said Friday morning’s events caused an unforeseen delay.
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