Risto Prii has bicycle stolen 15,000 km into trip, Kenn Morrison gets him back on road
Adam Bramburger
Beaver Staff
When he peddled into Napanee last week, Risto Prii had traveled just shy of 18,000 km as part of a cycling journey he hopes will take him around the world.
Although the Estonia native has seen some pretty impressive sites in his 10 months on the road, the generosity of one stranger will ensure this small town is more than a mere footnote in his memoirs.
On Canada Day, Prii was staying at a home with another cyclist in Winnipeg when he received some devastating news. Someone had stolen both men’s bicycles from a closed garage overnight. The culprit also took a tent that Prii had been using to camp as he made his way across Canada.
“It was not very nice. I thought, ‘What now?’ I really didn’t know what to do,” he recalled. “The feeling was obviously pretty bad, I’d been over 15,000 km with one bike. It wasn’t the best of the bunch, but it was my bike. A couple days before it was a celebration, and then it was gone.”
That bike had been under Prii as he made his journey from Cambodia down through Singapore and Indonesia to Australia before flying to Vancouver and making his way across Canada. He shared his story via Facebook and it went viral. Local resident Kenn Morrison read a CBC article and reached out.
“Here was this guy from Estonia who was hanging out in Winnipeg and his bike was gone. It didn’t seem like anybody was stepping up,” Morrison told the Beaver. He searched online for a top-rated bicycle shop in the Manitoba capital and asked if they’d offer some help. Morrison didn’t get the type of response he was looking for, but undeterred, he made his own connection and bought Prii a new bicycle.
“I said ‘Let’s get him a bike and get him out of Winnipeg,’” Morrison recalled. “We needed to get him on the road and get going. The last thing I wanted was for Risto to be weighing the best and worst times of his trip and saying the worst part was having his bike stolen on Canada Day.”
Prii said the generosity seemed “unbelievable.” Last Tuesday, he rode that new bicycle 140 km from Peterborough down through Campbellford and Stirling before eventually reaching Morrison’s home in Napanee. He was pleased to be able to offer thanks in person.
“Somebody bought me a bike. That was the nicest thing anyone had done for me. Thank you,” he said, looking across the table at Morrison minutes after his arrival.
His host acknowledged part of his motivation came from a warm welcome he received when touring Estonia with hockey teams in past years — and surprised Prii by showing him an Estonian flag that was hanging in their house.
While Morrison offered a new set of wheels, the people of Winnipeg also showed they didn’t like what had happened in their city as a GoFundMe page raised over $1,000 to help Prii with expenses on his journey.
Prii told Morrison his idea to ride around the world started while backpacking Vietnam, then Cambodia, with a friend. That friend decided to go home, but he didn’t want his adventures to end. Though he says he was never much of a cyclist, Prii thought riding would offer a cost-effective means of travel.
“I had the itch to buy a bike and try to cycle in Asia. Now I just go with the flow,” he said.
He arrived in Canada around the middle of May and he plans to go as far east as Montreal. His route has gone through the Rocky Mountains — the Icefields Parkway, near Banff and Jasper, Alta and the Sea-to-Sky Highway from Vancouver to Whistler, B.C. were among Prii’s favourite landscapes thus far — and along the Trans-Canada Highway. The traveller has really enjoyed Canada’s diversity of geography.
“Canada has been like many countries in one. You have prairies, then you have mountains, and you have forests. There’s everything here and that’s really sweet,” he said.
Even with all that wonder before his eyes, Prii said interacting with people has made his trip.
“That’s by far my favourite part. People have helped me quite a lot. I could stay with them, they have showed me around, they’ve fixed my bike sometimes, and things like that.”
He has met friends he continues to chat with online and some have even joined Prii on the roads. A group of cyclists from Waterloo met him during a tour in Malaysia and they have also served as hosts. Early last week, Prii stopped on the shores of Lake Simcoe to stay at a children’s camp for Estonian Canadians that is celebrating its 65th year. He was able to share stories with camp participants in both Estonian and English.
Traveling up to 140 km per day, at times, Prii said he hasn’t found the days to be too physically challenging, save for high winds. Biking across Australia and the Prairies presented the most challenge in that regard. Moreso, the tour has been a mental challenge, he says, given that so many hours are spent alone or in the company of total strangers.
Prii urged drivers to leave space if they seem him or other cyclists along the road. He said most drivers have been quite accommodating, but sometimes when there is traffic in both directions it is hard to find room. Compared to other countries, however, he said a lot of the roads he’s traveled in Canada have wider shoulders, including most of the Prairies where he said two cyclists could ride side-by-side there. He finds the roads busier the farther east he goes.
Asked about what lies ahead on course, Prii said he will cycle as long as he has money to do so. An Estonian newspaper is helping prolong the journey by paying for regular blog submissions. He is also raising money through PayPal at paypal.me/ristoprii. He hopes to do some cycling in the United States en route to visit his sister in Atlanta, GA. Prii also may tour more extensively in Europe.
Before heading back onto his course, Prii joined the Morrison family to see Napanee and to explore the Trent-Severyn Waterway by boat.