EDMONTON, Canada – The “Chumak Way” cyclists breezed through Edmonton, June 26-27 along their 10,000-kilometer ride through North America in support of peace in Ukraine.
The seven cyclists began their tour in Los Angeles, May 23 and end in Washington. D.C., Aug. 29. Travelling an average of 150 kilometers a day, they plan to visit more than 400 towns and cities in Canada and the United States.
The purpose of the tour is to raise awareness about the need for peace in Ukraine’s Donbas, present a positive image, and to promote the hottest cycling innovations.
The team members had to go through a selection process and complete a training task to check their endurance before getting on a team, Kostiantin Samchuk, the team leader, explained. He added that it was “important to know the people with whom you will be going for a long tour overseas.”
Among the cyclists are two veterans of the war in Donbas – Samchuk himself and teammate Serhiy Konoval. Speaking during a meeting with the Ukrainian community at the Ukrainian National Federation Hall on June 27, Samchuk said that when he returned from the front he was considering returning to work, but decided to do something for the country instead.
“It’s not right to waste your life just to make money. I feel that you have to do something …that will bring benefits to people – to Ukraine,” he said, speaking in Ukrainian.
The cyclists had first toured 16 countries in Europe along an 11,000-kilometer route back in 2016 setting a Ukrainian national record for the longest non-stop group tour.
Asked about his wartime experiences, Samchuk said that at the outset of the conflict, Ukrainians were very unprepared and poorly supplied.
“If it wasn’t for the volunteers, the results would have been quite different,” he said, referring to civilian volunteers who collected together equipment for the army and delivered it to the front.
Samchuk also noted that despite official Russian denials that Russian soldiers were in Donbas, he personally saw them there and no one tried to hide their presence. He also thanked the Ukrainian diaspora for their support.
Samchuk and Konoval said cycling “helped tremendously” in their rehabilitation process after returning from the war.
Samchuk and fellow cyclists Konoval, Oleksiy Smalnov, Serhiy Kotyk, Dmytro Tokin, Maksym Symak and Yaroslav Matviichuk were welcomed at the meeting by Ukrainian Canadian Congress Edmonton Branch President Orysia Boychuk, UNF Edmonton President Mykola Vorotilenko and Ukrainian Women’s Organization President Oleksandra Sribnyak.
The cyclists arrived in Edmonton the previous day, on June 26, where they were greeted on the Alberta Legislature grounds by the members of federal government, including Kerry Diotte, MP for Edmonton Griesbach and Linda Duncan, MP for Edmonton Strathcona, who thanked them for their courage and desire to “show the real Ukraine to the Ukrainian-Canadian community.”
While reminiscing on their route to Edmonton, Konoval said that they had hard time getting down the mountains in the province of British Columbia.
“We got rained on a lot, and we were told to look out for bears because there are a lot of them there at this time. So when we saw something big and dark on the side of the road we just assumed it was a bear,” he said. In fact, it was a police car.
Their first stop in Canada was Vancouver where they were welcomed by Wayne Stetski, MP for Kootenay – Columbia, co-chair of the All Party Cycling Caucus, Andriy Shevchenko, Ambassador of Ukraine to Canada, and members of the Ukrainian community who greeted them with bread and salt.
Other major Canadian centers on their itinerary include Saskatoon, Regina, Yorkton, Winnipeg, London, Toronto, Oshawa, Hamilton, St. Catharines, Ottawa and Montreal.
