When I first started riding a lot this spring, to train for the Cops for Cancer Tour de Valley, I was surprised at how much wind makes a difference.

What feels like a mild breeze to a person on foot can add a few minutes, and a few beads of sweat, to a bike trip. A stiff wind can turn a ride into an agonizing, uphill-all-the-way endurance test.

We keep on riding, though, no matter what the weather or the roads throw at us. Even if they sometimes throw something that’s not quite a road.

Last week, I was in the middle of a group of three riders on a training run, spread out as we barrelled down a hill in Cloverdale.

It turned out that the road had been closed to cars – and a sidewalk had been built across the middle of it. The road gently sloped up onto the sidewalk – then turned into a three-inch drop on the other side.

The jarring thump taught me a few things. It taught me to keep my eyes open, even if going down hill at upwards of 40 km/h. It taught me a new way to test my tire pressure. And it taught me exactly how hard my bike seat is. (On the Moh’s Hardness Scale of bike seats, it’s somewhere between sledgehammer and diamond.)

The sudden meeting of my bike seat and my backside, along with a later incident in which a teammate was almost clipped by a car in White Rock, led me to ask if anyone has ever died on the Cops for Cancer Tour de Valley.

“Umm… not died,” said our trainer, in a less than completely reassuring way. Bruised, scraped, tumbled, yes. Died, no.

Cycling reminds you how fragile human beings really are.

When you ride long distances on roads shared with cars, you inhabit a different space than that of the pedestrian or the driver.

A driver is sheltered, contained, and frankly pampered. I bought my nine-year-old Subaru because I wanted a station wagon-type vehicle. But it has power windows and door locks, air conditioning, cup holders, and heated seats (which I invariably turn on by accident in mid-July).

You really don’t notice the wind, in a car.

Even a basic compact car made in the last decade gives you pretty good protection in the case of an accident. That glass and metal cage has been engineered carefully to ensure that we drivers – or our survivors – don’t have any reason to launch class action lawsuits.

Pedestrians are far more vulnerable – but they inhabit their own realm of sidewalks and crosswalks, where they shouldn’t have to deal with cars. Unless something has gone very, very wrong.

To be a bike rider is to throw yourself into traffic with no metal cage, no seat belt, no roll bar, just a styrofoam helmet, your own good sense, and the goodwill of the drivers whizzing around you.

I’m really looking forward to the actual Tour de Valley, in which a police escort will clear the roads ahead of us, and leave us nice and safe in the middle of the street.

I wrote recently about how we practiced some crash-avoidance techniques, including the entire team riding in parallel lines, literally shoulder-to-shoulder. We learned to lean into one another, and not to shy away, but to take the other rider’s weight.

The other thing I’ve mentioned before is the fundraising we all do, and how we work together as a team. One rider gets the role up front, others do support work. Then for the next fundraiser, we switch, and the former leader is now a supporter, and vice versa.

Which is what we’re learning as we ride, too. I was surprised at how much I was pushed around by the wind early this spring, when I was largely riding alone. But when you ride in a group, you can draft behind the riders at the front, getting an easier ride. Until it’s your turn to move up to the front, and give everyone else a bit of a pull.

With just three weeks left until the ride begins, we’re all giving each other a bit of a pull on the training and on the fundraising.

If you’d like to give me, or one of the other riders, a bit of a pull, and shield us from the wind (metaphorically), you can donate to the cause on the Cops for Cancer website at http://is.gd/eMdI8, and enter the name of a rider.

Every dollar you donate goes to helping the Canadian Cancer Society’s mission of aiding children with cancer. We’re supporting Camp Goodtimes, along with research into pediatric cancers.