KPU hosts 3rd annual Bike-A-Thon to support men’s mental health
The 24-hour cycling event will promote conversation and raise money for Movember
Emma Baggott, Randall Heidt, Diane Purvey, and Laura McDonald (left to right) at KPU's 24-hour Bike-A-Thon for Movember 2023. (Flickr/Kwantlen Polytechnic University)
Kwantlen Polytechnic University is hosting its third annual Bike-A-Thon for men’s mental health from Nov. 21 to 22 at the Tech campus.
The event will allow students, faculty, and staff to take turns cycling on stationary bikes for 24 hours to raise awareness for men’s mental health and fundraise for Movember. Last year, the KPU Movember team raised $3,318.
Stephen Dockery, an electrical instructor in the Faculty of Trades and Technology, says the event aims to encourage open conversations around mental health, especially among young men in the trades.
“The idea is to do this Bike-A-Thon as a connection to promoting exercise as a form of managing and helping with mental health,” he says.
Dockery, who has been involved with the event for years, says the event welcomes anyone who is a part of the KPU community because the issue of men’s mental health requires awareness and action from everyone.
“Much like it takes a village to solve a problem … it takes a community to run something like this, and it takes everybody to address a problem,” he says, adding that collaboration is key to tackling complex mental health issues.
“The public statistics are really bad. Men struggle with attempted suicide and unfortunately are successful. So rates of addiction and suicide are very high in 18 to 25-year-old men, especially in construction trades.”
This rate isn’t related to the discipline of trades, but rather the economic situations of those in trades, which is male-dominated, Dockery adds.
Dedicated efforts from the KPU events team over the years have helped make the event more structured, Dockery adds. Considering its 24-hour run time, the event will have an open sign-in sheet to allow groups of people to allocate a time slot for when they’d like to participate.
“We try to encourage students to pick a time,” Dockery says. “If you don’t want to do it when everybody’s here, when it’s busy, my joke is that I don’t like to sweat in front of everybody, so I’ll do it at night when it’s really quiet and nobody’s around.”
In addition to cycling, the Bike-A-Thon will provide a safe and inclusive space for participants to share their experiences and challenges with mental health.
“The biggest thing that I’ve noticed is that [mental health] is something that is on people’s minds, and people are willing to share their experiences, [especially] people of experience,” Dockery says.
“The older instructors are willing to be right there — it’s not just for the students — they get in the space, they’re open to the idea, and they support and respect it.”
The Bike-A-Thon will also encourage participants to engage in various activities aimed at creating a comfortable and open environment for reflecting on mental health.
“We are all trying to acknowledge that these stresses are there, they’re all around us, they’re thick in the air, and sometimes it’s just really healthy to know how to articulate it,” Dockery says.
The Bike-A-Thon will run from 11:00 am on Nov. 21 until 11:00 am on Nov. 22.
To register, donate, and learn more about the event, visit www.kpu.ca/bikeathon.
