Burlington man rides 4,000 kms for Abbey, his late partner who died from cancer

View Full Article Here

Talk about a labour of love.

Burlington’s Callum Norris is riding 4,000 kilometres across Canada to honour his late partner, Abbey Maguire, who died from cancer at the age of 27 in March.

The bike trek will also raise money for Abbey’s Foundation (abbeysfoundation.ca) that provides annual scholarships for students from Burlington Central High School where she graduated.

Norris, a trained lawyer-turned-account manager at a capital raising firm, had only ever done weekend bike trips before beginning this marathon ride on his own.

“I’m very surprised that my physical ability has been good,” said Norris, 30, speaking from a gas station at the Alberta- Saskatchewan border last week.

“Dealing with the grief of Abbey not being here, I want to celebrate everything I’m doing with Abbey, has been the biggest hurdle. So I can physically do it but my mental battles is where I’m going to take a lot of learning from. It’s hard.”

Norris’ ride started his ride on Sept. 12 in Vancouver, B.C. — where Abbey had worked on a Master’s degree in architecture — with an eye to completing the effort on Oct. 17 at Burlington Central High School.

“I moved to Burlington when I first moved to Canada,” said Norris, who originally hails from Winchester, England.

“Abbey was fortunate enough to be awarded scholarships through high school, both her undergrad, and her Master’s.”

The couple were originally going to work on the ride together after the idea came about while Abbey was getting cancer treatment in Arizona.

“It was going to be called Abbey’s Ride to Conquer Cancer and I was going to do the ride and Abbey was going to do all the creative side, draw all the logos, the shirts and all that sort of stuff,’ said Norris, who quit his job to do the trek.

“The aim was to be able to tell a story of hope and that when you are put in a position like Abbey was that it’s not the end and that it can be beaten with love, with hope, and great medical assistance, you can beat this,” he said. “Unfortunately, that wasn’t to be. Abbey wasn’t just this incredibly talented artist, she was also a bloody lovely lady and even just the fact that she thought of doing this in her later days is just remarkable.”

More information on Ride for Abbey can be found on the foundation’s website.