They build bike riders tough in Texas. Take for example, Ian Denning, one of the 78 Texas 4000 cyclists from the University of Texas raising money for cancer research and support services on a two-month trip from Austin, Texas to Anchorage, Alaska. Denning was 22 days into his 70-day ride on the Sierra Route, heading through wine country in California’s Napa Valley when he was swallowed by a pothole.
Travelling downhill at about 60 kilometres per hour, he hit a patch of gravel and wiped out, landing hard on his shoulder. Luckily Denning, a former junior hockey defenceman from Houston who played in the Manitoba Junior Hockey League for the Waywayseecappo Wolverines, is used to throwing his weight around and sacrificing his body to stop pucks coming at high velocity. Luckily for him the only thing that broke on impact with that California road was his helmet.
“I was really lucky, the way I landed I just rolled and my helmet hit my head and my first thought I have to buy a new helmet but that was a good problem to have, I’ll be alright,” said Denning, who rode in from Quesnel Thursday, July 12 for a Prince George pi tstop, where his group of 25 Sierra riders met up with 26 cyclists following the Rockies Route on their trek to Alaska. Denning, 26, a public health/government major at the University of Texas, still has a bit of road rash but was otherwise unscathed. After a rest day he was to be back on his bike Saturday morning on the way to Vanderhoof.
His group expects t.