April 23/20 14:32 pm - Toronto Hustle Hosts CRUSH COVID 24 Hour Marathon

Posted by Editoress on 04/23/20
 

Domestic road team Toronto Hustle is hosting a 24 hour Zwift event to raise money for the Michael Garron Hospital Foundation, that will support healthcare workers. Called the Crush COVID Zwift Marathon, it has captured the attention of the cycling community, blowing past its initial goal of raising $50,000 and now closing in on the current goal of $100,000 , with over 300 riders signed up, including EF pro Mike Woods. It will begin at 6:00 pm (EDT) on Friday, April 24th. The website for the event is crushcovid.ca.

Grahame River is a member of the team and took a few minutes to talk about the project.

Crush COVID is a response to the crisis we are all facing. Cyclists and everyone else have been asked to stay at home as much as possible. So a lot of cyclists have taken that time and turned it into indoor training time on platforms such as Zwift and others. We thought 'why not give riders a chance to put that training to good use?'.

So this is opportunity for them to contribute to a good cause; supporting frontline healthcare workers. This is a 24 hour indoor cycling marathon, raising funds for the Michael Garron Hospital Foundation; all funds will be going to the hospital to support frontline healthcare workers.

Riders can join for the whole 24 hours if they want, but they can also join for as much or as little as they desire. They'll have the opportunity to ride along beside the entire Toronto Hustle team, including a couple of guys who are riding for the entire 24 hours - Brad Bradford and Travis Samuel.

There's a number of actions people can take through the website [crushcovid.ca]. They can sponsor people who are riding or make a donation, or they can sign up for their own page and ask their family and friends to support them.

Obviously, we would like for people to donate money, but we know that everybody isn't in that position. So, if people want to join but they are unable to donate, they are still more than welcome to join the ride. On Zwift there will be a ride starting every two hours, starting at 6:00 pm [full details can be found on the website].

It's been just an awesome outpouring of support. I think cyclist ... everybody ... wants to find a way to make an impact on the crisis. This is a pretty meaningful way for cyclists wanting to draw attention to the meaningful work frontline healthcare workers are doing and support them as they work to keep us safe.

We started by thinking that it would be our team doing this ride and then it seems that all of the teams, all of the clubs in Ontario have really stepped up to join in. And now we have professional riders such as Michael Woods and Matteo Dal Cin joining us as well. That kind of outpouring of support has been so great to see.

We keep revising our goal upwards. Originally it was $50,000 , then 75 and now it's a 100 ... I think we would love to keep going! The important part is the support for the workers, so the more money we can raise, the better it is.

We'll be live streaming the entire thing, so people can tune in at the Toronto Hustle Facebook page.

Anyway that people want to participate, they are more than welcome to do so. If they don't have Zwift, they can still join - we are going to be having a Zoom chat - so if you want to ride on your home trainer that isn't hooked up to anything and still want to be part of the ride, you are more than welcome to do so through the Zoom chat. All of this info can be found on the Toronto Hustle website.